F2P DanceDanceRevolution Idea

What if there was a downloadable free to play "DanceDanceRevolution", on the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Marketplace and Nintendo Network, that has a standard songlist of 11 free predetermined songs (as many as the first DDR had), along with every song on the most current DDR arcade game, and two ways to play the rest of the songs. Method 1 is to pay $1 for 5 stages where you can play any 5 song you want and have a chance at getting Extra Stage and Encore Extra Stage, just like in the arcade. You can then keep the Extra Stage songs if you successfully clear them. Method 2 is to buy packs of songs just like in the Bemani games on smartphones, and keep them forever. What do you guys think? The songs you buy could cross over between the PS3 and PS4 or Xbox 360 and Xbox One too.

I like the idea of method 1, kind of like playing it an arcade. I don't think it would work so well on a console because as advanced as today's consoles are, they don't accept quarters :V

Method 2 would depend on how many songs to a pack and how much the packs are.

How about just a regular non-free-to-play DDR CS title with DLC packs? It worked for the ULTRAMIX & UNIVERSE series and DDR PS3 was a thing, so......

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I think it would be a neater idea if the 11 free songs were picked at random, since you'd end up buying the whole collection anyway.

DDR needs to copy the Rock Band format at this point to stay relevant. Release the engine and sell songs as packs. Also sell modifiers and characters and other miscellaneous stuff.

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This would be easily the best thing that could happen

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there's games like Smite, where there's a free god rotation; there's a set period of time where a set of ~5 gods are free, and then after that period is over a new set of gods become free.

it would probably be interesting with DDR, just instead of gods, it would be free songs. (also, more than 5. probably 10-15.)

GITADORA kind of does this, too. In addition to the songs it comes packaged with, there's seven additional songs that are free with the rotation changing every day. I feel like something like that might work well for DDR also.

The idea is that the free-to-play style attracts more audience than a normal, full-price game, which would turn non-hardcore fans off. The $1 per play and song packs later add more incentive to actually invest in the game, which makes for more revenue in the long run. This also guarantees that people are satisfied with the song lists. You can try them all with the $1 per 5 stage method, and then buy packs of the songs you like most, whereas a full priced game would leave you stuck with around 70 or so songs, and you might not enjoy all of them. Since it's a full-priced game they'd have to focus on licensing costs and things like that, all while risking selling it at a loss, all for a (usually) lukewark song list. The free-to-play system makes sure everything pays off in the end.


Most Bemani games I've seen on smartphones have all song packs at $4 for 4 songs. DDR S+, jukebeat and REFLEC BEAT are some examples.


Another way could be for you to be given starter packs with KONAMI Originals at the beginning of the game, pertaining to a certain batch of DDR games. You could have a pack with random songs from 1st-5thMIX, MAX to EXTREME, SuperNOVA to SuperNOVA2 or X to X3.

Random packs are something best left in card games. If I'm paying a couple of quid to get a new pack songs, I would a)expect them to have good quality charts and b)be songs I actually like. I don't want this 'randomness' thing simply because we're inevitably going to pay for a pack we didn't want.

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I do admit, I kinda dig the first idea. Personally I think they should just do a release to PC as well as consoles. (Inb4 Stepmania) They kinda flubbed a bit with the original PC version since the MAX series and I believe Extreme was out, yet was still using the 30 FPS engine of the older series.

A PC release would be likely, actually. People tend to get away with free-to-play games much more on computers than they do consoles. My hope would be Konami wouldn't go overboard on the microtransactions.

Also, the PC DDR came out in May 2002, so just after Max 2 was released.

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I reckon you could get a reasonably heavily microtransactioned game. If iOS is a decent idea of what they'd offer from the beginning, then you'd get.

3 songs for free, although I imagine if it was a console thing (which it should be) you'd probably get closer to 10.
Default theme, probably X3/2013 era theme
Default Noteskin
Default Announcer

Microtransactions on:

Songs (Song packs, probably packs of 4)
Themes (Maybe look at anything from 3rd-X2, maybe even some of the console themes)
Engines (Something that looks like the old engines [akin to 2nd Mix Mode])
Noteskins (Stuff like Cyber, X, Butterfly)
Mods (Maybe, stuff like Wave, Brake - they'd be fleecing you for speed mods, note colours and things like that)
Modes (Endless, Course, Mission.)
If you did have an "Arcade Mode" with an extended songlist, obviously there's no coin slot like someone previously mentioned, but I wouldn't be surprised to see something akin to Pokemon Shuffle hearts/diamonds. Purchase X credits for £Y, more Y gives bonus X, max number of free credits per day?).

Effectively, depending on how much money you want to spend you could have a fully customisable experience...

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And there would really be no point because StepMania is a thing, unfortunately.

Seriously, besides the idea that 'oh its an official thing we need official things' there wouldn't be a point to any of this when you could just download StepMania, get a decent theme, some song packs, and you'd have the entire experience this game would give you... but for free.

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There would be a point if like
I don't know
people wanted to actually support Konami
and not just pirate music forever

I'm aware there are a thousand relatively more legitimate reasons fans aren't happy with Konami and don't want to throw money at them, but just because you can pirate everything doesn't mean it's a grand idea. Stepmania is great to fill gaps Konami won't fill, but I guess I'm just bothered by the whole "why pay for what you can just download" argument, particularly in the (rare?) occasion someone actually comes up with a good quality game.

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'pirate music'
>stepmania is piracy

basically no I'm not going to pay for a fucking 4-song pack in some shitty PC/console free-to-play game if I can get just as good an experience (Probably a BETTER experience) for free. I mean, why would you? I'm okay with this free-to-play thing but the thing is StepMania exists and it's not worth paying for DLC in a F2P game when the same thing exists where EVERYTHING is free. That's just stupid.

I'll start supporting Konami when I'm actually able to support them, because there's fuck all in Europe, so...

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I'm not disagreeing with you, I was merely suggesting how I reckoned Konami would or could run an F2P DDR game with microtransactions taking into consideration the two F2P bemani games I have experience with (being jukebeat and RB+).

Do I reckon it would work? Probably not, for the reasons you mentioned, plus I think dance games with panels are probably dead from a marketability perspective with the age of Just Dance.

That being said, what could be interesting is a F2P game with DDR and DanceEvo modes - that might be slightly more appealing the mainstream (OMG PROPER DANCE TO AFRONOVA, I'M IN - Chav, 2015). Far too much work on Konami's end but at least that'd have a differentiating feature from Stepmania, who wouldn't love to see what Valkyrie Dimension, Fascination MaxX and Chaos's Just Dance-style dances would look like? I know I would.

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I've always fantasized about a DanceEvolution mode with DDR stepcharts slapped in, probably the Beginner and Basic stepcharts, so you play both games at the same time in a somewhat intuitive way.


Of course you can get StepMania, but for some people it's just not as satisfying an experience. DDR's charm to some people, comes not only in the form of stepcharts, but also design choices, characters, challenges, and whatnot. You can't get StepMania to look EXACTLY like DDR, because frankly most people give up updating their modern DDR themes after a while, errors surface, and in the end it's not as accurate and stable as a true DDR game. You can bring up TAKUYA's themes which are fantastically accurate, but some people want a more modern look for the game. You can't get those nice 3D backgrounds from SuperNOVA and up on StepMania, unless you get cropped, crummy looking capture videos of them that make the dancers look awkward and out of sync with the music that is playing, not to mention they take up godawful amounts of storage if you want all the characters and stages. Sure, you can get the song's original videos, but not all the songs have them and you're stuck with a lame picture background or just random stock backgrounds. There's no missions or story modes, like Dance Master Mode from DDR EXTREME2, or any kind of unique mode in StepMania, it's just arcade mode and course modes. Some people enjoy these kinds of modes, and feel more of a feeling of achievement when they actually unlock a song, rather than just download it. They feel attracted by the characters, and there is more of an incentive to actually purchase music when they use the credit system that i proposed. Not all players are hardcore DDR players who just focus on their stepcharts, there's casual players too that want a nice character to relate to, some eye candy while they play, a feeling of joy and achievement. If you don't want to pay it, that's fantastic, but you need to understand that the idea is to attract a different demographic that isn't as aware of the DDR community and the alternatives that exist for the game, and an official option is just safer. Others don't want to have to mess around with StepMania to get it to be exactly what they want it to, and just want the options handed to them on a plate.

Bless you, this mainly why I would like DDR to come back. I still want to know what happened to all the designers/ writers/ artists that we had for X, X2, and to a lesser extent Dance Wars. Were they booted off or did Konami just shove them into a higher priority game? A shame; I loved all the story and art in those games... DW might not count but even Mike's initiation made up for how much sense the goofy UFO story didn't make. xD;

Matter of fact, charge for extra characters. The (majority of) people who don't care can watch the videos and I can limit everyone to play as Zero. Fff I don't even buy DLC, but I would've caved for Dance Wars in a minute if they had the extra dancers... and if it lived. ;_;

But that's one example (of many) of why I'd understand people are too angry to buy anything from Konami. I could tell you how I was addicted to Dance Wars all day, leeching the free content, but no one can avoid the fact that it was ripped away from people who honest to everything poured dollars into it to support it and it still died in months.

Actually going back to the character DLC thing... make amiibos out of them. If Konami gets on the fad soon enough, everyone and their mother will buy them without caring who they are or what game they're from. xP

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What is everyone's fascination with the dancer characters...?

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