3/14/2010

Thoughts: The Online Cash Shop

I'm not so sure about the free to play model (i like free but don't like the connotations that come with it) but I was thinking a good side of the mmo cash shop is that if you lack a certain something or don't have the time to do you can purchase it and keep up with others.

for example.
A casual player would like the benefit of larger bag space a la WoW, but doesn't necessarily have the saved up in-game money to buy at the auction house, or have guildies to help make it, or the time to grind skill to have a big bag space. What does he/she do? They spend (hopefully only a bit) RL money to buy some bags/space. Of course we gotta factor the way in which the game company does it, so its not overly expensive *cough gPotato cough*.. and possibly not a required perk (ie. DDO races/classes or STO Ferengi Races).

In Warhammer, it would be nice to be able to purchase emblems/insignias for those times when you just outleveled a lower tier and you missed the influence reward or don't have enough emblems to purchase a piece of renown gear. The convenience of being able to buy it with a bit of cash would be nice. WAR should NOT have a cash shop though on stuff besides these emblems; I think a cash shop should be implemented only right at launch or with a major expansion (and we're not talking TotVL).

The theory is easy, the implementation.. not so much.

The hard part is figuring out what is balanced, the benefit and the cost. Do you sell bags that are unique/better than the ones in the actual game that can be crafted or dropped? And how much will they cost? Make it too expensive and you're gouging, make it too cheap and everyone will buy it and not bother to craft and the economy suffers.
I think it should be both common and unique items, the common though being cheap; anywhere between 1-5$, and then unique items ranging from 2-10$max with weekly deals.

Sometimes it takes unique ideas like WAR; every ten levels you gain a whole bag area. It levels the playing field for everyone (b/c if you have friends in WoW, you just give a lvl 1 4 16+ slot bags, whereas a true noobie will have only 1 bag and a future 4 slot). But one good idea took away time from other things as we've seen. *coughEndgamecoughcough*

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