14 DAY TRIAL // Jim Butler, who is the global brand director at Trion Games, says that his company has no plans to ever offer a lifetime subscription for their Rift MMO to the player base.
He told A List Daily that, “I was against the idea when we did it at Turbine, and it won’t happen on my watch here at Trion.”
The developer explained that, “Lifetime memberships are a great deal for consumers that plan to spend the next few years playing the game, and a financial disaster for subscription-only companies that have to continue paying for new feature development, salaries, server costs, marketing, etc.”
Because the developers then lack the funds to further support the game, the consumer is actually hurt in the long term by an option that initially seems to be very appealing.
RIFT will get a significant expansion called Storm Legion on November 13, designed to update the core mechanics of the game and add new content.