Poll: Subscriptions for single-player games

[KeyMaster45]

For one if you're going to be charging people on a monthly basis to play a game then there has to be online communication between the game and servers at some point to verify the account playing the game has paid up their protection subscription fee. Otherwise there is no way to verify that cash has been put forward towards playing the game. So completely offline is something that's not possible when talking about subscription fees.

Either way I wouldn't even consider the game for my library, such a business practice is an outright scam when DLC has already filled that money making niche.

 

[Mechsoap]

no no no no, i would shoot anyone who would tell me to pay for playing a single player game i already bought

 

[Atmos Duality]

Insult to injury is more like it.
Adding an eternal rental to an already fishy purchase; that I might not be able to return or get a refund on if I don't like it, by the way. No. Just...no.
Anyone willing to agree to that might as well get hooked up to the milking machine, because they are officially a cash cow.

 

[DazZ.]

This isn't supposed to be UbiDRM or anything. You can play your game offline whenever you want, so long as you've paid the fee for that month.

There is no way in hell people would pay for that.

There is also no way in hell that wouldn't be cracked very easily and they would have no way of knowing, seeing as it's all offline.

 

[Veret]

This isn't supposed to be UbiDRM or anything. You can play your game offline whenever you want, so long as you've paid the fee for that month.

There is no way in hell people would pay for that.

There is also no way in hell that wouldn't be cracked very easily and they would have no way of knowing, seeing as it's all offline.

Everything gets cracked. If a computer-savvy gamer with an internet connection wants to pirate a game, there is simply nothing the publisher can do about it. This idea isn't supposed to be DRM, it's just a logical extension of Project Ten Dollar and DLC in general.

There does not exist a form of text big or bold enough to sufficiently say, "NO."

Say it with headings! Behold:

[HEADING=3]NO.[/HEADING][HEADING=2]NO.[/HEADING][HEADING=1]NO.[/HEADING][HEADING=2]NO.[/HEADING][HEADING=3]NO.[/HEADING]

Spoiler: Alternatively, you can hire a huge crowd of people to spell it out for you

You can also write it as the caption for an amusing picture, paint it on your chest and flip the double bird, or write it with gasoline in giant letters on Bobby Kotick's lawn and set it on fire. Or think of something new--the possibilities are only limited by your imagination!

 

[Yureina]

Absolutely not. I can barely stand multiplayer subscriptions as is. Only unless the game was god's gift to humanity or something (Think Duke Nukem Forever according to Yahtzee) would I -possibly- tolerate it. That would be the only way in hell.

 

[SimuLord]

I've been advocating just such a model for awhile now. Specifically, if a company knows that its ability to keep generating post-sale revenue is directly proportional to its ability to deliver plenty of DLC in an all-you-can-eat model, that means singleplayer games enjoy greater longevity (and, oh by the way, reduced piracy).

Companies are already going down this road with planned DLC scheduling (Fallout 3 comes to mind---for about half a year there, you could make the argument that Bethesda turned it into a $10/month subscription model). If they outright codified it, the nature of competition and the fickle nature of their customers would mean quite a bit more content would come out.

I'd try a game like that.

 

[DazZ.]

This isn't supposed to be UbiDRM or anything. You can play your game offline whenever you want, so long as you've paid the fee for that month.

There is no way in hell people would pay for that.

There is also no way in hell that wouldn't be cracked very easily and they would have no way of knowing, seeing as it's all offline.

This idea isn't supposed to be DRM

Of course it's not, nothing you have suggested has any mention of DRM at all, you asked me if I'd subscribe to it and no, I'd pay for it once and crack it.

it's just a logical extension of Project Ten Dollar and DLC in general.

With DLC you get to keep what you pay for, with this you're paying again for what you have plus new content. I don't see why I should be paying to use data I've already bought.

 

[slipknot4]

Yes, but only if it was growing at a sick speed. I mean, sure if i get a new 12 hour campaign every 30 days and a new "shivering isles" sized world every month, but anything less, nah.

 

[slipknot4]

This isn't supposed to be UbiDRM or anything. You can play your game offline whenever you want, so long as you've paid the fee for that month.

There is no way in hell people would pay for that.

There is also no way in hell that wouldn't be cracked very easily and they would have no way of knowing, seeing as it's all offline.

This idea isn't supposed to be DRM

Of course it's not, nothing you have suggested has any mention of DRM at all, you asked me if I'd subscribe to it and no, I'd pay for it once and crack it.

it's just a logical extension of Project Ten Dollar and DLC in general.

With DLC you get to keep what you pay for, with this you're paying again for what you have plus new content. I don't see why I should be paying to use data I've already bought.

The op clearly stated that you could buy it, play it and not pay the fee and just get the original game. Or pay the subscription every month and get all the patches and dlc's.

 

[RanD00M]

I don't have to pay subscriptions for TF2.And TF2 is always getting updates...That are free.So why should I have to pay for some thing monthly that is completely offline.When I don't pay subs for stuff in a game that is has all of it's excitement online.

 

[DazZ.]

The op clearly stated that you could buy it, play it and not pay the fee and just get the original game. Or pay the subscription every month and get all the patches and dlc's.

Where? It clearly didn't.

 

[UnSeEn60]

Depends on the game. If it's the type of game where I can expect a whole buckload of new features (maps, weapons, skins, missions, etc), then perhaps. Otherwise, probably not.

Also, the thing is, most companies don't plan on supporting single-player game content for that long. It's different with MMOGs where the community is constantly expanding and expects tons of new content every months, but with most single-player games, the support peters out pretty quickly. I'd have to be sure that my game would be supported for a while at least.

 

[Fayathon]

I refuse to play multi-player games that require a subscription, so I'd never play a single player game with one. I don't want to pay to play a game that I already bought, it seems a waste of money to me.

 

[Outright Villainy]

I don't have to pay subscriptions for TF2.And TF2 is always getting updates...That are free.So why should I have to pay for some thing monthly that is completely offline.When I don't pay subs for stuff in a game that is has all of it's excitement online.

I'm with you there. In fact there's a massive engineer update coming soon even. This game has been updated over 120 times, for no cost, and I often play it for hours a day.

So no, there's absolutely no way I could justify paying a subscription for a single player game, when I know how good it can be.

 

[Veret]

Depends on the game. If it's the type of game where I can expect a whole buckload of new features (maps, weapons, skins, missions, etc), then perhaps. Otherwise, probably not.

Also, the thing is, most companies don't plan on supporting single-player game content for that long. It's different with MMOGs where the community is constantly expanding and expects tons of new content every months, but with most single-player games, the support peters out pretty quickly. I'd have to be sure that my game would be supported for a while at least.

That's actually the idea here. If developers could expect a continuing revenue stream from a single-player game like they do from MMOs, then they would be able to put a lot more effort into supporting it with new content. The example that Jim Rossingol (the original OP over on RPS [http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/05/07/would-you-pay-a-sub-for-single-player/]) gave was of open-world games like Oblivion or GTA getting new areas continually added on. Players could keep coming back to find new places to explore and people to meet/kill/steal from, rather than just getting one or two new items and a bugfix every month.

it's just a logical extension of Project Ten Dollar and DLC in general.

With DLC you get to keep what you pay for, with this you're paying again for what you have plus new content. I don't see why I should be paying to use data I've already bought.

When I say "extension," I mean that they'd be taking the next step beyond DLC. The idea is that publishers are always looking for more effective ways to keep customers playing--and paying for--their games. As for whether it's worth the money, remember my point about flexible pricing (which I'm about to reiterate below).

The op clearly stated that you could buy it, play it and not pay the fee and just get the original game. Or pay the subscription every month and get all the patches and dlc's.

Actually no; sorry if I wasn't all that clear on this point. What differentiates the subscription fee from regular DLC is that, if you stop paying the monthly rate, you stop being able to play any part of the game. Which is heinous, I know. But then this frees up publishers to use all kinds of pricing systems, like giving away the game + first month free in order to draw customers. Just think of all the promotions Blizzard does with WoW, and then apply that to single-player games instead.

I don't have to pay subscriptions for TF2.And TF2 is always getting updates...That are free.So why should I have to pay for some thing monthly that is completely offline.When I don't pay subs for stuff in a game that is has all of it's excitement online.

I'm with you there. In fact there's a massive engineer update coming soon even. This game has been updated over 120 times, for no cost, and I often play it for hours a day.

So no, there's absolutely no way I could justify paying a subscription for a single player game, when I know how good it can be.

Ah, so many people bringing up TF2. I wish all developers could be like Valve; I really do. But not everyone can be perfect, and some companies just can't afford to do this sort of thing regularly without getting paid.

EDIT:

You can also write it as the caption for an amusing picture, paint it on your chest and flip the double bird, or write it with gasoline in giant letters on Bobby Kotick's lawn and set it on fire. Or think of something new--the possibilities are only limited by your imagination!

Beyond restructuring the entirety of the cosmos and arranging entire galaxies as pixels in an infinitely large arrangement of the word (whose gravitational forces would likely cause some sort of universal rift) so the word could scroll across the entire night's sky, to where it would only be entirely visible if viewed from all six cardinal sides of the earth at one time... It'd still need to be bigger.

Ah. I stand corrected. But can we still light Bobby Kotick's lawn on fire?

 

[Veldt Falsetto]

This is exactly what I hate about modern gaming...dlc, argh, Squaresoft didn't need to release a patch every month for FF7 giving you more to do and tbh it has loads to do already, more than most games released this gen.

Nintendo didn't need to release a patch every month for Super Mario World and that came with loads of secrets.

Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy, even Sonic, god damn every game before this gen required a 1 time fee (the cost of a game) and had so much replay value, so many secrets and easter eggs for those hardcore few fans to do and find while giving a full game to everyone who's fine with that.

No one complained about Goldeneyes multiplayer maps but now people pay 11 quid for a few old CoD 4 maps and some new stuff, this pisses me off so much because idiots buy the dlc and we get no secrets anymore, no fun little additional content the devs put in for fun.

I don't care how long it takes, we don't need a new yet unfinished CoD every year, we shouldn't need to pay for extra dungeons that should have been in the game for some fun when the stories done. Dark Cloud had a 100 floor dungeon after you've finished. Lost Odyssey has a 10 floor dungeon that costs about how much Dark Cloud does now.

I'm sick of it! I'm sick of DLC, achievements and other stupid meaningless gimmicks taking all the fun, skill, thought and exploration involved in playing a game just so special people can feel good at something, yes we can all 1000 Avatar and we can all find the xbox marketplace/psn store, stop making us give you money to minimise the fun and exploration factor....ARGH! STUPID BUSINESS!

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Absolutely not. I paid for the game once, didn't I? I hate subscriptions for games... the only thing I have a subscription for is Xbox Live and I hate the idea. Single player is completely out of the question. Even if it did constantly update like WoW, it still wouldn't be enough.

 

[Mr. Gency]

The only way I'll pay is if the game is literally so good it fucks my mind.

Since that right not is an impossible feet, my answer is no.

 

[toadking07]

If the game was good enough and I could be promised more awesome single player to come, I'd pay for it.