Should Call of Duty follow Killzone 3 on Multiplayer Seperate Purchase?

Recently Killzone 3 got the option to sell the multiplayer side of the game to its customers via download. To me this is a big thing and a great idea and other companies should do this from launch date.

First of lets just take a second and realize how many people probably get games like Call of Duty and mainly play the multiplayer only. For myself, I usually play multiplayer first few days then check out the campaign and knock it out in a day or two, then never go back to it again. I don’t have to get all the achievements from a game all the time and usually don’t bother with Call of Duty. But not only for Call of Duty but other multiplayer games this might be a way to reach out to more audiences and possibly save some money on both sides. Let’s be realistic, the Killzone 3 multiplayer is a great deal at $14.99, Call of Duty would probably be able to sell it for at least double. Lets say they go with $29.99. That is a significant amount for just multiplayer and would probably still sell. I can easily imagine people buying it for 39.99 and yes even at that price you would be saving money. Even if you wanted to play the campaign for $4.99 you could go rent the game for a few days knock that part out and you spent less than you would have for the full game at $59.99.

Now your thinking, ‘Gator your crazy, they wouldn’t do that it would cost them too much monies!!!’. Well, if they thought this all out, they acutely might make money. No manufacturing for digital downloads, packaging, shipping, etc. And I would like to note this isn’t saying kill the disc idea, I’ll get to that part in a bit, but this could save them and us money which is as close as a win/win that I seen could happen for both sides in a while.

Now what about disc copies, well to keep those ‘worth it’, they would simply have to be creative, such as, limited edition emblems, tags, or maybe 72 hours of double XP or a limited edition weapon for those that purchase the disc copy that can only be accessed with the disc copy. Whatever they come up with it would be smart to make it unique but not totally unfair for those that opt for the digital copy. Even making the launch of the digital copy be in the afternoon of launch date or next day after launch date to give those that wait for midnight release disc copy feel like they are getting it before those that pay less.

This isn’t just for Call of Duty though, this would actually help other titles with multiplayer that want to compete with Call of Duty. Think about the people who want to try out other games but don’t want to risk spending $59.99 on a game then to want to return it after not liking it at all. Even making a digital multiplayer demo at launch might help those that want to try new games get a good preview. Let’s say you get so many level ups of free online play and once you capt that off you have to decide to purchase the multiplayer side digitally or go out and get the disc copy. Keep in mind Steam does free Call of Duty multiplayer weekends as a ‘sales’ tactics. Pretty sure if they sold only multiplayer side they would make money off it.

This all might seem easy or too good to actually do but this might be a great move for all the companies to follow and yes Killzone 3 is old at this point but the idea is new and they might actually make some money once some players try out the different multiplayer type game that Killzone brings.

Like I said this should start happening, there are tons of people I know that could benefit from this (money, game variety, new experience without major risk) Hopefully other companies will follow suit to this and have it led to other communities getting more players