NOTE: This is only an opinion, i am not by any means trying to make what I say true. Please keep that in mind
The subscription model I think would best fit GameMaker, taking the very vast target involved, would a double pricing system.
Basically, the current one price lifetime license would be kept, because many people rather own what they buy.
But also a subscription model, specially offering low payment rates on large period of time.
First, this lets people like me, who don't make money out of GameMaker, a chance to use all of its features ( including modules )
for a very low price.
Second, if for whatever reason you can't use GameMaker anymore ( or don't want to because a new better app came out ) then you can cancel your subscription.
You won't have paid an insane amount of money for an app that you won't be using anymore.
Third, and this is the important part, I feel most people are afraid of subscription models
because they think they will end up giving more money than if they actually bought the product in a one-payment lifetime license.
If the subscription would actually stop once you've reached the equivalent of the one-shot payment, that would probably remove
completly this fear of paying more than the worth.
This is what I think would work best for GameMaker ( and mind me, I have 0 knowledge of money or business, I'm talking as a simple consumer ):
1. Offer the same current "static" price for lifetime license
2. Offer equivalent licenses through subscriptions that actually end when the said price is reached.
Note that by nature, a subscription only allows you to use the producs, it is by no mean "yours" until you've reached
the said equivalent final price. But for someone like me, who uses gamemaker from time to time just for fun, to be able to pay something like 10-20$ per month
over the laps of about 5 years is a lot better, to me, than paying a huge chunk of 800$ in one go. Specially knowing I can cancel my subscription anytime I want
if I plan on stopping using gamemaker for an indefinit period of time.
Hopefully this would please most people out there.
I have no idea if this is feasible in practice tho.
I saw this system in
Parakeet-IDE 2 and really liked it.
( note: I've talked with the developper of parakeet over IRC the day they released parakeet. This is how I actually fell in love with their pricing system )
Regards,
Cedsharp