Thanks for this post, Anders, it's something I've discussed briefly with zuperman.
Joaquin, it's feels uncomfortable talking too much about this since I'm very close to the ten million points mark. Obviously I would like there to be some incentive for continuing to play Dogfight. The game itself and the community are certainly worth sticking around for, but it's much more difficult to stay motivated if there are no rewards. (and no, thank you, I don't care for gummy bears. But if you can figure out how to box up Penélope Cruz and ship her, I wouldn't tell the FedEx guy to send her back to Madrid.)
Not just for my own interest but for the sake of the players coming up behind me, I agree that there should be some sort of incentive for continuing to play beyond Level 31; if not to unlock bonus content or items at predetermined point levels, (new missions/vehicles/weapons and boosted/unlimited performance are common in online gaming) then at least to reach a still higher rank.
Many games offer the incentive of being able to "prestige" your player. Prestige mode assigns the player a rank, medal or other bonus indicating that he/she has cycled through the ranks to the very top and started over with some sort of re-start bonus.
Right now we're all playing hard to reach the current goal but when that goal is reached soon there will be no point (and no points) in playing. For the fun of the game, obviously, but who plays a video game without new levels or thresholds to unlock?
I won't pretend that I'm not concerned about this for personal reasons. When I hit the 10,000,000 maximum I'll be frozen in place, no more progress, no more points, sitting and waiting while everyone else has all the time they need to match my score. There's not much fun in racing if you're forced to sit on the sidelines while the other racers catch up.
You should take this as a compliment to your work and your game; none of us wants to "get to the end".
--wig--