Hellgate: London, Lifetime Membership Priced

Controversy has surrounded the announcement that the MMO Hellgate: London is to have a two tiered pricing system. The game will be free to play out of the box but for a monthly fee, players will get access to other features. However you can bypass this monthly payment if you pre-order and pay $149.99 for a lifetime membership.

Not unlike the limited offer presented on the release of Lord of the Rings Online, this will give you access to ‘elite’ armour, an in game dwelling, easier transportation between areas, and priority access to servers all of which will usually set you back $9.99 per month. So for the price of 15 months of an elite subscription you get it more or less forever (The terms and conditions say “‘Lifetime Subscription’ refers to the lifetime of the online subscription component for Hellgate: London, not the user’s lifetime,” whatever that means.) The pre-order scheme also gives you a beta key and a unique dye kit based on which retailer you pre-order through, with different colours for Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and EB Games/Gamestop. At the moment it seems that this offer is only valid in the US, there’s no reference to other territories on the website.