Derek, I'd love to hear your take on this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen_refunds/comments/7gq7yl/theagent_leak_via_sa_star_citizen_may_go/
The Agent has been insightful before now, but how true are these latest claims?
Yeah, I would just ignore all of that. TheAgent has turned leaks into a gimmick. So nobody pays attention anymore. He's been completely "off" this past year. He even admits to just posting any shit that comes his way.
Anyway, I wouldn't pay any attention to that rubbish.
Also, Star Citizen already has monthly subscriptions. They claim that it pays for the ATV and similar shows. And they have also shamelessly been using it as an incentive to get non-subs to pay in order to get early access (via Evocati, PTU) to a game they already paid for.
They just recently did it again with the 3.0 PTU release. So, given the on-going costs of running servers (hardware and AWS), they have to pay those bills in the long run - while funding their operations. So I wouldn't be surprised if they found a way to normalize subscriptions in some form.
But given the prices of ships and items, I don't see how they could possibly change to a F2P model, and not get laughed at.
None of this is news because any game billing itself as an MMO - which Star Citizen isn't, and NEVER will be - has to find a long-term strategy to fund their costs.
As I've said before, the only way forward for them - if they survive (which they won't) - is to forget this whole MMO nonsense, and go with a session based game like ED and others. With a 16 player cap, they can get away with it. But that would require them to implement private servers and a server browser. They already have those components, including matchmaking, so it's not a stretch for them to do this. But that would completely kill the dream. And because it makes sense, they won't do it. So there's that.