Selling singleplayer/multiplayer seperately be a good idea?

[krazykidd]

So , i realised something . There are some people that care soley for single player , others that only care for multiplayer , and the rest like both . Now would it be a good idea to sell the single player and multiplayer seperatly to cater to both sides ? I mean , let's say a game with both a good single player and multiplayer modes comes out on release costing 69$. What if theres was the single player only package of said game for 39$ , the multiplayer only package for 30$ , and the single player & multiplayer package for 69$ as usual. Would this be a good idea? So those who only care for either single player or multiplayer, there would be a package especially for them and for those that want both well it's the regular price .

What do you guys think?

 

[Weaver]

I think they should be priced proportionately. For instance, I don't feel CoD campaigns are really worth more than 5 to 10 dollars.

 

[Kurai Angelo]

Was it a concious decision to make the single player part cost more?

I don't really see the point in this tbh. it just means developers would lose out on money. Even if someone only wants the game for half it's content they're still going to buy it.

 

[Valkyrie101]

I'd rather games focussed solely on one facet or the other throughout the design process, rather than splitting them.

 

[Zantos]

I'd be up for it, now that we've got a decent bit of DigiDis I doubt it'd be that difficult if people wanted to just buy one part. I'd buy both anyway, but it'd stop people complaining.

 

[redisforever]

Maybe...I don't really play online multiplayer, and only play the singleplayer. Well, actually depends on the game.

It may make buying games I like cheaper...

 

[krazykidd]

Was it a concious decision to make the single player part cost more?

I don't really see the point in this tbh. it just means developers would lose out on money. Even if someone only wants the game for half it's content they're still going to buy it.

Yeah it was conscious , i'm mostly a single player person , so i'm a little bias but i think more work goes into single player , depending on the game of course , but i could be wrong . Also how would the developpers lose money exactly im curious .

My point is , why should someone pay for everything if the only want half , also they could later buy the other half if they changed their mind . And also people that don't have the money to buy games at 69$ could get the game and the section they want for less. Of course games with no multiplayer would still be at the full price of 69$ . It would be the same as buying it on release and it might even encourage more people to buy games day one .

 

[Avaloner]

That would be nice indeed, I almost never play the multiplayer portion of any game, thinking about it, I never really played any multiplayer game very long, sure Gunz was fun for a while, before everyone and their dog transformed into the jump glitch abusing shotgun waving idiots or, how I lovely call them, super mario player and maybe 4 league with their unusual weapons had me hooked for some time, but battlefield 2 annoys me to death, simply because I need to shut down my steam interface every time and team fortress or monday night combat never had more than a few measily hours played.

I prefer being in a game alone, playing at my own pace, running around discovering secrets or exploring the story of the game, multiplayer always pulls me out of the whole feel and just kinda annoys me.

 

[Cridhe]

It would be nice to see more games that could fluidly transition from SP to MP on a whim like Borderlands did.

 

[laggyteabag]

what if it was a multiplayer or singleplayer only game, like MAG, TES, Fallout, would you only spend $30 for it?

 

[n00beffect]

I support the idea, that a game should be sold solely for single players and multiplayers. I might infer that this thread was inspired by Yahtzee's latest Extra Punctuation, so for a valid argument, please refer to that (I am too lazy to write one, right now)

 

[Tzekelkan]

Won't happen. What possible interest would the publishers have in doing this? At the moment, if someone only wants the singleplayer, they pay 60$; if they only want the multiplayer, they pay 60$. Selling each separately at a reduced price would diminish the profits, because the people that won't pay 60$ but are interested in only one aspect of the game will buy it cheaper as it naturally tends to go down in price after release.

 

[krazykidd]

FUCK NO. THIS THREAD HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE AND THE IDEA HAS BEEN PROVEN TO BE RETARDED AND BAD FOR BUSINESS.

Source plz

 

[krazykidd]

what if it was a multiplayer or singleplayer only game, like MAG, TES, Fallout, would you only spend $30 for it?

Those would sell for 69$. As usual . Why? Because all of the work went into one aspect of the game , either the single player or the multiplayer.

I support the idea, that a game should be sold solely for single players and multiplayers. I might infer that this thread was inspired by Yahtzee's latest Extra Punctuation, so for a valid argument, please refer to that (I am too lazy to write one, right now)

It wasn't because i don't read the extra punctuation , but no you peaked my intrest to i'll go check that out.

 

[ExileNZ]

Honestly, I'm all for tacked-on single/multi. A lot of my favourite games would've been that much better if, once I'd finished them, I could go online and blow my friends apart. I can't remember this happening more recently than Quake 2.

Likewise, Unreal Tournament (any of them) is principally multiplayer, but I spent all my time playing offline skirmishes or the campaign mode. But again, every now and then I could go on and face real people, which quickly reminded me why I like to play games offline.

Besides, if you give developers the chance to charge for both single and multi, following your example it just wouldn't be 39 for one and 30 for the other for a total of 69. It'd more likely be 45 for either one or 69 for them both.
(EDIT: or maybe that should be "publishers")

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

It's a great idea for consumers, but not so much for publishers and developers.

I mean, lets take Call of Duty for example, most people play the call of duty games for the multiplayer, and couldn't give a flying fuck for the single player. Many never even look at or touch the campaign (hell, the games even give you the option of not going to the main menu screen at start up and instead going straight to multiplayer). This means that all of these people who would have bought the game for $60 new, and never played the campaign, will now buy the game for half that price, and see absolutely no drop in content. This means that both the publisher and the developer sees less money from the sale.

Then the other problem is, what about games that have absolutely no multiplayer and just have a single player focus, like Deus Ex or Metro 2033? Would those games be sold cheaper because there's no multiplayer, or would they be sold at full price? Don't you think that if the games were sold at the full $60 people who are used to paying $30 for a single player experience would start complaining about the games being too expensive and would therefore buy less copies of the game?

So yeah, while this would be GREAT for consumers, who would only have to pay for what they actually want and use, it wouldn't be so great for developers.

 

[Scizophrenic Llama]

The only way this might work is if it was all digital distribution. It's not cost effective to release three different sets of items for a single game, because you'd be doing a disc for single player, multiplayer, and a combination.

The only way that could justify this is if all three sold well, but then you'd have multiplayer beating out singleplayer for some games and the opposite for others, and then you'd have lesser sales on the combination which is what they really want you to get because it'd be more profitable for them.

Although releasing just a singleplayer disk for around $30 and then making multiplayer optional as a $15-20 download, it'd be far more effective.