with emulation and the ready availability of old machines I dare say that will be a long time.

I got in the beta too, but I'm not buying the game with that pay to play pricing model.

Adding to this:
There'll be a day when you die and can no longer play the games you bought.

oho. hours payment sounds awesome.
the reason i cannot get into mmo (dropped ST:O even tough i liked it) is time. paying 15 bucks forces me to play the game. i hate that.
with hour payment i decide when i want to play. today tomorrow, next frigging week.
This week i played only 4 hours of BG2... and want more but cannot. next week i won't play at all till saturday (exams, assignments... grrr!!)
so woho. good idea
edit: i wish eve did that :( i so wish they did that.

Even if they're buried with you? I was going to take my copy of red storm rising just in case I ended up somewhere with a 486 that had a 5.25 floppy...

What were you expecting from an MMO?

Oh it's pay as you go? Well I'm definately not even bothering to check it out now (the BETA is really meh anyways).

why?
would you instead pay for when you NOT play?

I mean I don't like not owning the game, I wouldn't pay for it if it was monthly payment either. I have to say the best subscription system is LOVE's as you get 30 days but you only use them when you play the game (which is just as well since there is nothing to do in that game).

best... subscription?
ABC DOES THE SAME. not so generously but you get 50hours. which kinda for me is more than 30 days :D

Uh yeah that's the point. If it was that genorous I would easily do it (providing the game actually becomes fun) but since it's only 50 hours I'd rather not.

It would be cool but for a game like eve where you lvl up while your away it wouldnt work well.
I like the idea but the price is a little to much. I would pay less doing the $15 per month deal.

huh. how many hours you play a brand new game? Mission Edge which cost more took me 8 hours to complete (okay. i paid few bucks for it during christmas sale but if i bought it during release the game would be more expensive and 6 times shorter.)
Steam tells me that i spent 30 hours on mass effect.
50 hours for 35 bucks ain't that bad mate. not many games took longer to play.... no. few games only manage to top that.

I don't get the animosity for this idea.
I play about 15 hours of Aion every month with a girl I know and yet I still pay $15. Here, I'd get 20 hours for $10. It's an option that is handy to have - you can still get a monthly fee.
Personally, I would like to see the price drop a little. 25 hours for €5 would be ideal but 20 hours for €6 is a little big too high - that comes to 25 hours for €7.5 which is only slightly less than what I pay for an online game per month.

I wouldn't call it an MMO (except from a technical POV). I'm not sure what I'd call it, but then I can't call it anything in public yet anyway, as I'm bound by a NDA.
Also, for Americans the game will cost $49.99. Guess what it'll cost for Europeans? Yup, €49.99. Screw them.