....
Not everything in the Shadowrun universe needs to be replaced. One of the players in my group is still using his Ares Predator II from pre-2065 (we converted our characters over from 3rd edition; I was the only one who got a new character). He maintains it and upgrades it to this day. I'm pretty sure he'd leave our table if I told him that his character's signature gun just spontaneously turned to dust one day. Hackers generally don't replace programs... they patch or upgrade them, the cost of which is significantly lower than replacement. Hell, the only member of our crew that ever buys regular replacements is the rigger, and that's for pretty obvious reasons (drones have a much shorter lifespan than runners).
There are plenty of already-existing money sinks in the game. This will be ESPECIALLY true if they decide to have lifestyle rules. I plan to be dumping 100,000�+ a month on my sex-pad.
Ooh, new question for primetide! Any chance of getting some implementation of the custom lifestyle rules from runner's companion?
whoa, that has spun into a long and thoughtful discussion - I think the solutiuon to this is basically that degradation to "destroy" and degradation to "recharge/repair" are not oppositions but ends of a scale.
First, you introduce quality as a means to gauge degradation speed or as a "stat" similar to "health".
The you define groups of "resistance/health" based on invest:
Cyberwear for example could degrade slowly, being a major invest. A used gun from the junkyard could degrade quickly.
Then cost for repairs also scale - the used up gun may not be worth repairing, your cyberware would be. The Ares Predator II would be a constantly and lovingly cared for gun, in essence receiving many "repair-like" attentions with a "repair-like" item called: Gun oil and polishing pad. It may also be "mastercraft" quality and have heaps of "health".
Then some things can malfunction upon reaching certain "health" levels, influencing your interest in repairing them. Here some quality stat could define the chances of malfunctioning - a cheaply made cybewrare may still degrade slowly, but malfunction much earlier, making constant reconfigurations/repairs advisable if you don't want to be stuck with a locked up cyberarm in mid-combat.
Magic failure can go the same way for foci etc.
Then lastly crafting (which is not that developed in SR) comes in for rigger and hacker characters - they can program their own soft and invest time (and buy top equipment to improve their chances of succeeding) and perhaps resources, which are again a mission goal in itself (there is this new hot algorythm in town, you may wanna get your hands on).
by and large materialistic motivations prevail in MMOs much more than in PnP games (karma or nuyen in the end are means of improvement) - but SRO already has a sound basing in that. More so than "fantasy" MMos where in the end most players seem like mercenaries as opposed to the noble paladins they are supposed to be.