I think that you will have some conceptual issues in doing the cash shop in a single player game.

When I think of cash purchases, I think mostly of MMOs. It makes sense there, where inter-player interactions are the meat of the experience. When there are 10,000 players working off of the same sets of costumes and equipment, a good chunk of people will pay cash to have something that most others won't have. The cash price itself will prevent a lot of people from buying it, preserving the uncommon-ness. And since the cash content is not very significant, no one feels left out if they don't buy it.

A single player game is a different thing. When I buy a game, I expect to have everything I need and have no real interest in cosmetic stuff- certainly not for cash. If I want a different color costume or spells or something, I'll mod the game and I expect to be able to (even if it takes some doing). Since it's just for me to see anyways, I wouldn't put much cash value on it. Convenience purchases probably wouldn't sway me either, because if the game is fun I'd much rather spend my free time playing it than use some of my work time to cut out play time.

I really have a hard time imagining much I'd be willing to pay for in a single player game except for bigger content, like new missions and whole new features. I would (and have) pay for new content packs, a la Magicka and others, provided that the core game is fun and the packs are not priced very expensively. I'm all for not limiting the amount of money that players can give you, but for my own part I'm too used to getting the complete package on purchase, and filling in traditional MMO cash fodder with fan-made content. An expansion pack I'd buy, and wouldn't necessarily feel cheated about it though.

For single player games the main thing you can offer is additional content, it is however not a great idea to sell a game that feels incomplete (Having an npc in a rpg you allready payed for tell you to pay real money to do a quest is insane), the total war games handled this nicely (on the menu screen they advertised new DLC), If a game is free however it is perfectly fine to let a player pay as they progress through the game, (a bit like old shareware games)

So far the only place I find micro-trans acceptable are when what they are selling really has no bearing on the game at all, for example the selling of hats in TF2. It's purely a bonus in that game. There are a few "MMOs" (I use the term loosely) that use a micro-trans model and in those cases I really don't mind it. Mainly because the game itself is so shallow and designed specifically around a cash shop that I could never take it seriously enough to care.

The version that springs to mind when this subject comes up are those used by MMORPGs sometimes when either their sub based or free to play. They often seem to sell cosmetic items because (and players often agree with it) it has "no bearing on the game". The problem is it does, cosmetics have always been important in MMORPGs and allowing people to buy certain items does basically trivialise a crucial aspect of the game. The same goes for border line cosmetic items such as mounts. I don't feel that real life should have any real bearing on the game outside of the amount of time you are available to play for, especially in MMORPGs which are essentially trying to create an alternative world for the player to escape into. I don't necessarily mind paying for services outside of the game world (e.g. character transfers), but anything that directly changes a players character or their experience of the game is something I would rather not have in any MMORPG.

PS: I should add that I understand that out of all the options cosmetic items are the least objectionable for most people and would likely be the way to go. From a purely money making perspective buying power (a small amount) is also highly successful if done correctly. But I personally feel that micro trans should not be used unless you really have to (I quite liked the idea of a scaling monthly sub depending on what the player wished to access).

These are questions a lot of game devs have. Frankly, it's all about the kind of game you want to create. There are some ways that are more "true" to the love of gaming, while others are explicitly set up to make money at the behest of gameplay. I'd highly recommend checking out the video below to get a laundry list of game mechanics from Roger Dickey, the creator of Mafia Wars of Zynga fame. Then you can pick the mechanics that you're comfortable with.

[media]http://vimeo.com/32161327[/media]

Hope this helps!

I'm willing to play arcade games (actual arcade games in actual arcades) where I buy my way into the game with a credit, and get to play until I either beat the game or lose.

I'd be fine with the same price structure on the net: starting a new game costs $0.25, no other payments. Unlike in the physical arcade model, there's no need to limit the game to be a maximum of 35 minutes long.

In competitive multiplayer, no purchases other than cosmetic ones are okay IMO.
In a situation where we have a fighting game and 5 out of 20 characters are locked behind a paywall, I'd be likely to do one of two things: either never buy the game in the first place, or mentally add all the purchasable characters into the purchase price, buy the game and immediately buy all those characters.

Thanks for all the thoughts, opinions, and suggestions. I'm going to spend some time processing this and thinking it over.

About releasing DLC right after release.

First:
I bought SWTOR. I had to set up a subscription, which is annoying since I do have 30 days of play time, or wait, apparently my days were running from when the game launched. Only problem was, I couldn't set up such a subscription because of to big loads for SWTOR's undersized server capacity.

Second:
Now, what I really was gonna talk about is what happened right after this. I got a message of a digital upgrade pack. That's right. Pay to get some extra trivial stuff (or stuff that should really be there in the first place). This is a pay to play game. Do I feel cheated? Yes I definitely do.

[edit: sorry to dredge the thread]

Second:
Now, what I really was gonna talk about is what happened right after this. I got a message of a digital upgrade pack. That's right. Pay to get some extra trivial stuff (or stuff that should really be there in the first place). This is a pay to play game. Do I feel cheated? Yes I definitely do.

It's stuff that's available in the collector's edition. I'm fine with a company offering to sell me that stuff without the fancy box.


As for the original topic. I'm against subscriptions in games, so as you might imagine I'm not thrilled by spending more money when I've paid for my game. And I'm not thrilled by advertising a game as free, but then you can't play or compete without spending money.

TF2 hats are cool. Spiral Knights has a good free to play system. In general I approve of these f2p systems where the pay currency can be bought/traded for via free currency (read: time). D&D online also has a decent system like that where you can eventually get some of the pay content for free in-game by accumulating quest rewards.

Buying cosmetic items is fine. I can kinda approve of the iPad sort of system where the game and chapter 1 is free, and then extra chapters are sold. (though I prefer if such systems offer 'unlimited access' options/discount). Paying for extra character slots or inventory is annoying.

I am actually okay with free games supported by ads, either a little banner at the top or a on-login one-time ad.

It's stuff that's available in the collector's edition. I'm fine with a company offering to sell me that stuff without the fancy box.

Okay, I guess that's fine (they could have mentioned that). Not sure what the droid did, but if you could get that along with your companion (making you stronger), then I dislike it, because it's a subscription based game.

I think subscription model has many advantages. It could be more flexible though. Many pay to play games seem to make some bad gameplay changes to support a pay model (especially pay to win games).
Especially in persistent world games where players can control areas, a subscription model would ensure higher degree of activity. For instance tribalwars can be quite empty, but there's a premium server which you are required to subscribe if you want to play (in the other's it's optional), and it's supposedly much more active.