I believe there are some flaws with the concept of purchases skewing the gaming experience in multiplayer worlds, specially MMOs. We are told by many of the larger publishers that if they are to allow real world currency to affect the player’s progress in the game in any way, this would result in unfair treatment to the people that put time into the game, ultimately destroying the game’s experience. A cataclysm of unforeseen proportions. As a 12+ hour a day MMO player I used to believe they were absolutely right. I mean, I had forsaken sex, social interaction and personal hygiene in favor of completing my armor set. Why would a 15 year old with a credit card be able catch up to me?
But then I looked around me (figuratively speaking). Most of us “hardcore” players had one thing in common: We were either unemployed, sub-employed, or rich. By investing time into the game, we were investing money. Yes. Money we stopped receiving because we weren’t working, or because we were underachieving. I have nothing against people quitting their jobs to play an MMO. You have to do what makes you happy. But people that are successful in those games are doing so by investing their time into the game. It is not so different than the 15 year old with his dad’s credit card. Here’s the catch though: No one likes to play in a server with no people. We gaming companies need the people that can invest half of their lives on our game as much as they need us to provide them with a fulfilling gaming experience. So time is O.K. as currency, but dollars usually aren’t.
The problem with in-game monetization is that most people don’t have 12 hours a day to spare, but a lot more people can spend $200 to catch up. So you would end up with a large amount of well-geared players. An amount larger than would be acceptable from a game design point of view. But as games grow cheaper and cheaper, as more and more players become used to paying small amounts for in-game advantages, the larger publishers will have to face the music. It will be interesting to see how we as an industry achieve this. For now, all that can be said is that the old adage was right: Time is money.
Jairo Nieto