And this is the part everyone has a problem with. If I'm spending $150+/yr, it's ludicrous I can't keep what I've gotten up to that point. You want to cut off the FCT, 25% discount and ongoing monthly benefits, that's fine and completely understandable. But for that much money, I should keep what I've gotten that far.
Now, if you were to create a subscription for $150/yr that includes TRS19 (and all future new versions while my subscription is active) and ALL paid DLC and if I were to cancel that, my access to everything goes away, I would be on board for that. That's entirely reasonable.
But that's not what it is. You're expecting me to pay for most DLC on top of the subscription. And if I cancel that subscription, my access to all that DLC that I PAID FOR goes away because I no longer have the main product to run it from (unless I shell out ANOTHER $70 to buy Trainz again). That is just plain wrong. And frankly, it's offensive that you even put that plan forward.
I may eventually spend the $70 for TRS19, but there's no way I'm following the subscription model as you've put it forth. I'll be content to keep driving TANE for now thanks. I enjoyed being in the private beta and TRS19 is a beautiful product. It makes me sad that you've chosen this route to take with it.
I think you're mistaken here.
If you do this monthly as you are eluding to, and you cancel for a few months then start up again, your content and program will start up again once you pay your subscription rate.
Let's say you pay $15.00 a month for the program and use the program for 9 months during the fall, winter, and spring when the weather is lousy. You stop your payments at the end of May because you now do stuff outside, travel, or do something else during the warmer months and don't bother much if at all with Trainz.
You will still have access until your next payment is due, but after the end of that invoice/payment period, everything goes into suspended mode until you start your payments in the fall. Anything you've worked on is still there, anything you've downloaded will still be there, anything else is still there, but the program is inactive until you start making your payments again.
Since this package also includes the FCT, you'll have the same benefit with this as well. For those folks that travel for example with their families and have their Trainzing PC at home, they lose months off an annual ticket. In this case, the ticket too is suspended until paid again when they start up. I know many people who over the years lost many year's worth of FCTs because they weren't around to use the ticket due to travel, family vacations, etc.
Now if you choose the $70 package with out the full DLC, and FCT, what you get is what you did with T:ANE and all the other versions of Trainz. In that case, you purchase your DLC as you want, and buy an annual FCT separately, and so on all just as you do now or did in the past.
Before purchasing, you need to weigh your options. It's like buying car and health insurance!