Since singleplayer, multiplayer and MMO are all inter-connecting and blending together. There is little to tell the differences between some of them. Games considered multiplayer, are now called MMOs...MMOs now have many singleplayer features.

Singleplayer games (like Skyrim) haven't taken the approach of MMOs however. There is no cash shop, you can't play Skyrim for free (legally) and there is no score board or anything. 

My idea is this...take a singleplayer game, turn it free to play (it works really well for MMOs)...and then charge for extra content. I'm thinking every quest should cost 1-2 dollars...and the major quest chains (like if something similar to the Dark Brotherhood), it should cost 5-10 dollars. Of course still having regular expansions and DLCs. Also have unlocks, like certain items are locked (more so, the rare ones) and you have to pay to unlock them. But leave the main story line, the basic items and basic crafting, all free for the player.

I think this approach would work really well, and make the company doing this, a lot of money. Everyone dives into a free to play MMO, and spends more than a normal pay to play MMO...and they carry all the free to players. MMOs that went free to play or freemium, from pay to play...have seen a HUGE boost of sales, income and population. And I think it could help singleplayer games a lot. Not just Skyrim, but racing games, FPS games...other RPG games...I think it would do really well. 

If all someone wants to do is go through the main story, and not worry about sidequests or leaderboards...he can do just that and not pay a cent. However, I imagine many would want to do all the side missions, unlock the rare items and buy items, exp bonuses and everything. The company would make more than enough, to offset the free players. 

And since not every game has sidequests, and some just have a story to go through, and don't even have multiplayer.

For every chapter of the story, one would have to pay 5-10 dollars to unlock the next one. Kind of like buying DLC to unlock further parts of the story.

Now, the choices for a very linear game would be more limited...and a freemium wouldn't exactly work for every game. But, the more chapters people unlock, the more money the developer has to add even more chapters. That would the theory be for that one, and is already done sometimes.

A singleplayer freemium would only really work with a game that isn't 100% main story. Of course, multiplayer games already have freemium features to them...so they've already cornered that market. But even then, many singleplayer games could work really well...

And even then, even a 100% linear game, could add a free feature for people to play through. Maybe they would have to pay to unlock a certain part of the game. Just some free feature that lets them play for free or experience a certain part of the game without paying, and then they can pay for more. They could even still add items for people to buy...could be something simple, like cosmetics. Those tend to make quite a bit of money.

One question do you work for EA ???

Its bad enough with day one DLCs. If single player games do that crap then I will burn my PC and Xbox.

Originally posted by GwapoJosh
This is the absolute worst idea I've seen in a long time.. No thanks.

And thats why free to play MMOs are bad.

There is actually people doing this.

Originally posted by ForumPvP

Originally posted by GwapoJosh
This is the absolute worst idea I've seen in a long time.. No thanks.

And thats why free to play MMOs are bad.

There is actually people doing this.

Yes, and these MMOs make a ton of money. Whether one doesn't like the idea or not, doesn't matter as these free to play MMOs make more money than any other MMO...with this model. Especially the freemium ones. And everyone can play a free MMO without needing to buy anything. So they get into game, get hooked, buy stuff. 

Singleplayer games could make a lot of money with this approach, just like freemium MMOs do. And developers could even add powerful items to the cash shop...it wouldn't really be pay to win, because it wouldn't affect anyones game except the person who bought the item in the first place. Companies would sell SO much just from items, let alone everything else. In return, people can play the main story (or part of it), for free and not have to spend anything...if they don't want to. 

It would be exactly like a freemium MMO, but for singleplayer games instead.

Originally posted by TheScavenger

Originally posted by ForumPvP

Originally posted by GwapoJosh
This is the absolute worst idea I've seen in a long time.. No thanks.

And thats why free to play MMOs are bad.

There is actually people doing this.

Yes, and these MMOs make a ton of money. Whether one doesn't like the idea or not, doesn't matter as these free to play MMOs make more money than any other MMO...with this model. Especially the freemium ones. And everyone can play a free MMO without needing to buy anything. So they get into game, get hooked, buy stuff. 

 

Singleplayer games could make a lot of money with this approach, just like freemium MMOs do. And developers could even add powerful items to the cash shop...it wouldn't really be pay to win, because it wouldn't affect anyones game except the person who bought the item in the first place. Companies would sell SO much just from items, let alone everything else. In return, people can play the main story (or part of it), for free and not have to spend anything...if they don't want to. 

 

It would be exactly like a freemium MMO, but for singleplayer games instead.

Free™ Skyrim,hmmm what kind of experiment that could be.

Base game for free  (huge risk)

Player made content with modding tools is Bethesdas property,and they will then sell those to players. (worse than how it is now)

Or they remove those modding tools. (not good idea)

Even now when they charge from their  own content its worse than player made content. (so  players suffers from this)

Quest lines removed and made DLC etc, (Metacritic score 3 abouts i bet)

from player point of view,it just gets alot worse.

But if every single game takes that approach,it would open huge market for games like  "buy once,DLC free ,your way"

Like it or not, I think this is the way things are going.  It will have its ups and downs, but like any sort of change, people insist on blowing it all out of proportion.

A Gamespot blog entry on the subject..

Originally posted by Vhaln

Like it or not, I think this is the way things are going.  It will have its ups and downs, but like any sort of change, people insist on blowing it all out of proportion.

 

A Gamespot blog entry on the subject..

About that piracy thing,would not change a thing,then they would just hack those DLC items,and maybe even sell those for cheaper,like we see goldsellers now on MMOs.

Originally posted by ForumPvP

Originally posted by Vhaln

Like it or not, I think this is the way things are going.  It will have its ups and downs, but like any sort of change, people insist on blowing it all out of proportion.

 

A Gamespot blog entry on the subject..

About that piracy thing,would not change a thing,then they would just hack those DLC items,and maybe even sell those for cheaper,like we see goldsellers now on MMOs.

 

Of course, hackers will be able to hack almost anything that doesn't go the way of D3.  I don't think this would prevent anything.  I just think it would make piracy less enticing.  I'd be more likely to pay a few dollars here and there, once I've tried the game, and feel it'd be worth it.  Pirating it wouldn't be worth the trouble, anymore.  Can only speak for myself, but I think there's a ton of grey area here.  

They should be thinking of it as working with potential consumers, rather than working to stop theft.  The problem with most anti-piracy efforts is that they refuse to acknowledge the issues and reasons people pirate.  They just take an all or nothing adversarial stance, that ends up just driving even more people away from buying anything.

Oh my dear lord please NO.

Getting enough nickeled and dimed with additional cost "DLC" which is already finished when a game is released.

That would only work if they had trouble selling the single player games. They don't really have trouble selling the single player games so I don't see that being a better option for developers.

It's already headed that way with so much day one DLC. Why anyone in their right mind would advocate it unless they have a vested interest completely boggles.

Edit typo

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

^

I think there are all different ways to do it.  Some more offensive than others.  Some might force you to pay, just to progress in the game, but others might just offer things like most nickle and dime DLC, where you pay for fancy weapons, extra side missions, or a special companion.  

Even in Skyrim, with all its mod ability and everything,  imagine if the DLC were exactly the same, but tacked onto a freemium model, instead of a box price.  Even with all the mods, people still buy that DLC, right?  Except, a lot more people might buy some of the DLC, if the base game were free, and they'd completely eliminate needing to pay a cut to retailers.  That's why it could potentially make more money.

Not saying its definately the way to go, but I think there's a good chance it would be more lucrative than the current model.

Originally posted by Vhaln

I think there are all different ways to do it.  Some more offensive than others.  Some might force you to pay, just to progress in the game, but others might just offer things like most nickle and dime DLC, where you pay for fancy weapons, extra side missions, or a special companion.  

 

Even in Skyrim, with all its mod ability and everything,  imagine if the DLC were exactly the same, but tacked onto a freemium model, instead of a box price.  Even with all the mods, people still buy that DLC, right?  Except, a lot more people might buy some of the DLC, if the base game were free, and they'd completely eliminate needing to pay a cut to retailers.  That's why it could potentially make more money.

 

Not saying its definately the way to go, but I think there's a good chance it would be more lucrative than the current model.

Im assuming the OP meant something along the lines of what f2p phone rpgs are doing.  Which is making it into a huge grind and sometimes making progress impossible unless you buy new gear from their cashshop.

Edit : If you guys havent played DLC quest...you should! Its epic

I think a DLC approach to single player games can be interesting at keeping player interest alive and reducing initial investment in a game.  However, I don't think it will come to a point of offering a game for free.

I can see myself paying $20 for a game, then $20 for an expansion to the game 6 months later.

However, paying for stupid overpowered crap is kind of pointless to me.  I don't think it would pan out well for a company either since in the single player arena, players are not competing with each other.  They are looking for a challenge and engaging content.  Free to play cash shops reduce both of those which is why taking a similiar approach in offers would not pan out too well.