I've recently got back into Skyrim after leaving it for a good long while so it would be semi-fresh again. Coming back I've been wondering something which strikes me as an addition which would significantly improve and streamline TES games and something I'm extremely curious as to the reasons for it's lack: player owned businesses.

I don't know about you guys, but if I was in the Dragonborn's position, the first thing I would do with my first few thousand gold (after purchasing a home/base for myself) would be to open up a store, hire a shopkeep and proceed to sell my loot at full price, rather than a reduced price to merchants so they can sell it on.

Gameplay wise it makes sense too as I, like most of you, spend a lot of my time travelling to, from, selling to merchants and waiting for their gold to replenish (not something I do personally, but that's the only way to offload your goods efficiently currently). Being able to throw all your loot in a storage room in your shop/chest in your stall and maybe set prices (this would add a deeper layer but not required) is infinitely more convenient, efficient and allows for another route for progression and specialisation if a player just wants to man their shop for a few weeks or own shops in every city etc, etc. Upgrading from a stall to a single shop to a franchise, buying NPC shops (at a prohibitive cost obviously) and whatnot could also be an expansion of this. It's strange because given the popularity of "build your own home" mods and merchant gold increase mods it looks to me like the natural progression and something that Hearthfire probably should have been.

It's not like it's out of the realms of the engine's possibilities either. One of the first mods I installed was Adura's Merchant Mod: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=116775764 (shameless plug for a relatively unknown but fantastic mod). For those of you not aware, this mod allows you to purchase your own stall in various cities, have your housecarl/follower man it (or hire a shopkeep) level up your merchant skill to sell higher value items, trade for items rather than gold and has a few other features.

I'm curious to know people's thoughts as to why something like this isn't included at all in any TES games? Sure, you could argue "that's what mods are for!" but I think I, and many others, would prefer it to be an official part of the game with professional polish and proper voice acting/integration with the game.

Fallout 3's Real Time Settler (http://fallout3.nexusmods.com/mods/7070/?) is an even further natural progression of this type of mod, and would make Bethesda a lot of money as a DLC, allowing the player to start a city, allocate buildings and stuff.

I would love to see this sort of thing in future titles, essentially a Recettear-lite inside of TES, Am I alone in wishing for something like this?