I often get asked why our games have players purchasing a currency called ‘credits’ rather than simply directly purchasing what it is a player may buy with credits; instead of buying 100 credits, why not just have players buy the widget they’re
going to buy with those 100 credits? When we first opened Achaea in 1997, this was a reasonable question, as credits were non-transferable. A player purchased credits, and then purchased other things with them. The only advantage was saving in transaction costs by letting players purchase in bulk.
Not too long after, I started wondering why we didn’t allow players to transfer credits to each other. Goodness knows they were asking for it often enough. I honestly don’t remember my rationale for not allowing it, but I quickly realized the enormous advantages to be gained by allowing credits to become a ‘real currency.’ They can be summed up as, “Everybody wins.”
Let’s look at at a transaction with three players. Company X is the publisher, selling credits for real money. Sal has purchased 100 credits from Company X for $100 and has put them on the automated credit-for-gold market for 10,000 gold/credit because he needs the purely in-game currency gold to pay the in-game property tax on his house. Bob intends to buy these 100 credits because he doesn’t have any disposable income and wants to buy a special sword that costs credits.
Everybody wins!
- Company X gets the money it needs to operate.
- Sal gets the gold he doesn’t have the time to gather in-game.
- Bob gets the credits he doesn’t have the real-world money to purchase directly from the Company.
I call our credits a bridging currency because it bridges the gap between real-world money and in-world effort/time. I’m sure economists have a better word for this concept, but I’ve no idea what it is.
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June 19th, 2006 at 10:46 am
John DeLancey
Inspired by this system, having played Achaea for a little more than a year, I considered it for implementation in the pseudo-MUD I’ve been developing for nearly the same amount of time. I also wondered why IRE might have chosen a separate currency instead of cash-for-content economics.
While what you’ve mentioned makes a good deal more sense than the rationale I came up with, I believe mine has some merit. While it is plainly stated that nothing you pay for, or its relative value, is guaranteed in the slightest, I can only imagine the kind of headaches that would arise from the multitudes of complaints sent because the content that customers paid for (a sword, gold currency, or anything else) was stolen, devalued, or destroyed, regardless of where the fault for the loss may actually lie. In having a separate form of currency, playing a sort of middle-man role, the customer has purchased the potential to gain some other content, but that choice is even more so his or hers to make.
While, obviously, no claims made by a customer concerning loss of paid-for content would stand up for a second in a court, the cost in time and money for having to deal with such claims would be more than a hassle, and so I find the idea of a middle-ground, where there can be no doubt whatsoever that the customer had every chance to make whatever decision he or she wished regarding the middle-ground currency, a very appealing one.