09 Jul, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 41st comment:
Votes: 0
Davion said:
quixadhal said:
While you can't turn them back into cash, you can sell them for in-game gold. So they aren't totally wasted, like SOE's currency is.


Having wasted a buncha time on DCUO (an SOE game) I found their currency to not have this problem. Items that can be bought range from 100sc-1500sc. So no matter how much you have, you can spend it down to nothing. But yes, there is no way to exchange cash for in-game cash.


It's easy enough to offer goods that allow players to maximize their in-game cash. I don't understand games that try to make sure you have some left over. That just breeds frustration over time. Seems to me that you should let them spend down to 0 if they want to–they are more likely to buy more, sooner. But maybe those games have analytics data that shows the contrary to be the case :)

I can see why most (all?) titles with in-game purchases nowadays have a special in-game currency. It greatly reduces the number of real-money transactions, which reduces cost (fees) and minimizes errors. It simplifies implementation and maintenance by orders of magnitude.

An in-game currency also sugarcoats the real price of things, like the ubiquitous x.99$ tag does, which is an extra tool to spur consumption. I'm not sure that I would buy anything in a game that shows me a virtual item with a $5 price tag–it would be too obvious to me that I don't really "need" to buy it :) So maybe some sugarcoating is agreeable to players. I do hate it when games intentionally choose a conversion rate that makes players less able to intuit quickly how much in real money a virtual commodity will cost. But I think the big games nowadays are above such shenanigans.
09 Jul, 2013, Runter wrote in the 42nd comment:
Votes: 0
They want people to think "The only way I can use this 200 gems left over is to buy 800 more and get the 1000 cost item."
09 Jul, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 43rd comment:
Votes: 0
Runter said:
They want people to think "The only way I can use this 200 gems left over is to buy 800 more and get the 1000 cost item."


It may also help with retention, since some folks may feel that it would be a waste to quit the game while they still have 200 gems on their account…
09 Jul, 2013, quixadhal wrote in the 44th comment:
Votes: 0
In the case of GW2, it's also a way to (potentially) make extra in-game money. Buy gems when the exchange rate is low, sell them back when it's high.
40.0/44