I was wondering if they would offer a lifetime membership option to those who could afford it...
If the game stay p2p then I wouldn't mind paying say $500 for a 5 yr deal, or even $1000 for ten.
are there opinions on this without hate?

My opinion is that you have too much money.

Lifetime membership is the greatest "death flag" a subscription-based MMO can trigger.

If lifetime membership is offered at any point, I personally would abandon ship immediately.

Why? Lifetime membership is offered when:

1) The studio/project is running out of money, and need a quick cash grab;

2) The devs don't expect the game to survive much longer based on subscription alone, so lifetime subscription is pretty much pulling the net before it's too late.

More than anything, the devs also realise that when they start offering lifetime subscription, a lot of subscribers will lose confidence in the game's future. In other words, the devs would know that the game going downhill may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lifetime subscription is indeed the most desperate move any subscription-based service can ever make.

Understand your point, maybe a guarantee or clause would be needed if they pulled the plug early.

You can always just send a check to Zenimax, I'm sure they will accept it.

Just curious, why would you want a lifetime subscription? The savings on 3 month and 6 month subscriptions are negligible. And you stand a fair chance of the game going f2p at some point and losing that investment. What advantage do you see by paying for a lifetime subscription?

Personally, i think more options are good. In practice for 'lifetime' type of membership though, i'm very wary. I've been on both sides of this as a customer and as a service provider and it has the possibility of getting very convoluted. Tho i really doubt ZOS will offer lifetime subs in the future, it wouldn't hurt to call CS in a few months and see if they would consider it if you were really up to shelling out the dough.

They obviously won't include such an onerous clause in there, since most people don't read terms and conditions anyway.

They'll either use lifetime subscription as one last cash grab before [censored] hits the fan, or they won't do it at all.

I used to have a cpa do all my finances on a monthly basis, but my new firm and I came up with a annual plan for expenses, no matter how small.
So I would just prefer that over monthly increments.
1 statement over 12 is sort of what I'm going for.
Helps cut down on micro-transaction paperwork on the bigger picture for me, that's all.

ESO is a business expense? I want to be there when the IRS auditor sees that line in deductions.

P.S. I get that it is your budgeting style. The idea just made me laugh . . . thanks.

That makes sense, i've had acquaintances with setups like that. Like i said, i'd call CS and have them run it up the flagpole and see if it is a possibility. Again, i doubt it, but it wouldn't hurt to pursue it.

Ultimately, the issue must be examined from a financial perspective. Regardless of how much a MMO wants to give its players "more options", the option will only be approved and made available by the higher-ups when it's financially sound.

When will lifetime subscription be financially sound? When the higher-ups expect that "all potential revenues from a player for all time" is less than or equal to the lifetime subscription fee. In other words, the actual figure of a lifetime subscription fee can almost serve as an indicator for a MMO's expected shelf life.

Hypothetically speaking, let's say that the lifetime subscription fee for ESO is $300, then using a generous discount rate of 15% its present value would worth around 21 months' present value worth of subscriptions. Such a fee would indicate that the higher ups don't expect the same player to continue playing the game for more than 2 years, assuming they didn't need the cash in a hurry to pay off some other debt. The problem is? A player, who doesn't have all the information, may think that he'd still enjoy the game after 2 years, and may expect the game to continue to release content or at least keep running. On the other hand, the higher ups who approved the lifetime subscription, while possessing all available information, may already know that funding is being pulled, devs are being fired, or that some maintenance/operation cost may increase in the near future that'd render continued operation of the game unfeasible.

TL;DR: Lifetime subscription is bad, because it will only be offered when the end of the MMO is nigh, or if it's transitioning to F2P soon.

In general i agree with that assessment, as i said the situation could become convoluted. But all it will cost MAA is the length of a phone call in time to see if he is out of luck, no harm in him trying.

whilst it might be nice to see 12 month and 24 month subscription payment plans, i doubt that a lifetime subscription is a viable business plan in this case.

if a game were to reach the 20 year mark, and had accounts that were subbed that entire time, i could see a lifetime status awarded, gifting a free sub for the rest of the Account Holder's natural life, that would be kinda cool...

This game is going to be F2P within the first year, and you're wanting to drop $500 on a 5 year plan?!?! You're not going to play this game that long....trust me.

Now now...

The old crystal balls out again.