Using Dual Currencies to Unlock Demand

Matt, that post rock! Educational and interesting, a rare post to come across.

And big thanks to bring me to Jeremy’s blog, once I got time I will go over his blogs.

Many things in Matt’s article resonate with my own thinking on the subject of defeating the gold farmer/seller (a.k.a. real money trader or RMT).
However, I am puzzled by the omission of one rather important ingredient.

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Everyone can get what he wants here. Simply turn credits into a currency and allow players to trade one currency (credits) for another (gold). Everybody wins!

* Paying User buys credits from Iron Realms, giving Iron Realms what it wants – revenue.

* Paying User sells those credits to Non-Paying User for gold, giving both Paying User and Non-Paying User what they want (the essence of healthy capitalism).
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The ingredient missing from Matt’s article is a limit on the number of times a credit can change ownership in game.

For a gold/credit exchange to have any meaning at all it is obvious that a user who purchases a credit from the game provider must be able to trade that credit with another user in exchange for gold.

Each user’s demand for credits is driven by a desire for items that can be purchased with those credits - typically items from a so-called cash shop or item mall. In an effort to confound any potential black market trade, these shop items are usually made non-transferable.

However, if a credit purchased in-game (via the gold/credit exchange) is able to be resold then a portion of the demand for credits will be tied to a certain group of users’ collective desire to speculate in and/or manipulate the gold/diamond exchange market. Wouldn’t you agree?

The user(s) most likely to participate in such speculation/manipulation is a user with a very large stockpile of gold. … A gold farmer fits this description!

If a game designer disables the reselling of credits then gold farmers lose any motivation to purchase credits in-game using their ill-gotten gold. There is simply no profit to be had from a stockpile of credits that cannot be transferred to another account.

This concept gives rise to the need for two “containers” for keeping account of each user’s credit balance.
(i) Unrestricted credits are those purchased from the game provider using a verified transaction.
(ii) Restricted credits are those purchased in-game via the gold/credit exchange.

Only unrestricted credits should be able to be traded for gold. As soon as an unrestricted credit changes ownership it becomes a restricted credit!

Both restricted and unrestricted credits should be able to be used at the in-game cash shop. Common sense suggests it is best to spend restricted credits before spending unrestricted credits.

The unscrupulous RMT business operator is still motivated to purchase unrestricted credits from the game provider using stolen credit card and/or bank account details. A possible remedy for this situation is to cause newly purchased credits to appear in a user’s account as restricted credits until such time as the transaction is verified. (Some credit card providers and even Paypal allow a transaction to be reversed up to 30 days after the purchase transaction.) Only after verification should any remaining balance of restricted credits be converted to unrestricted credits.

I’d welcome reading your further thoughts on this matter.