Here’s a thought folks and hear me out….

With Microsoft’s reversal on the DRM policy for the XBOX One, what if they considered making anything that isn’t CAMPAIGN in their exclusive titles DLC?

For instance, imagine the next Halo game being campaign only. Then to play multiplayer you have to BUY that separately as DLC.

I can see this as a way for developers (not just MS, but Sony and 3rd parties) making more money. Want to buy the game, sure, you get CAMPAIGN ONLY. Want those multiplayer experiences though, you have to pay EXTRA for it. And of course don’t expect games to become cheaper due to that. Both MS and Sony know we consumers are now used to the $60 per game pricepoint, so that will stay.

So what would this mean? Well, those who buy games only for campaign would still have that. But those of us (and I’d say it’s the majority of gamers) who buy for multiplayer/matchmaking) we’d have to shell out more money. Since this can ONLY be sold as new, places like Gamestop wouldn’t be able to undercut the developers. Gamestop would still get money from initial sales of games and a little bit from resale, but the larger portion would go to the developers. Even if Gamestop were to sell CODES for multiplayer in games, it’s still that initial sale in a sense. So again, the devs would get more money.

Would this piss we gamers off? You bet. However if the big guns like MS and Sony both adopted this business model together, then we’d have no choice on consoles (yes PC, but I’m not talking about that…).

To take this a step further, let’s say multiplayer becomes a one-time DLC fee, say $30. What would stop MS and Sony eventually going to a pay PER play for multiplayer? Nothing super expensive, say 25 cents US per hour. Doesn’t sound like much, but when you consider the MANY hours people put into multiplayer that would really add up over time.

Whew, maybe I shouldn’t have thought out loud on this. I hope MS/Sony doesn’t read this article…

-Sal