Microtransactions and Theft: Here We Go Again

In this article, aspiring game designer Gabby Taylor proposes some solutions to the issue of virtual good theft in MMOs.

Disclaimer: The following post does not represent the views of the IGDA, IGDA Game Design SIG, or anyone else except Gabby. Just wanted to get that out of the way.
 
Some of you might remember my other post about microtransactions from way back in February. It was a bit heated, but it spells out how I feel about them pretty well:  I don’t like them. I think they hurt the industry despite bringing in large amounts of money. Most people do not agree with me on this and have brought up pretty valid points. I love it when that happens. Intellectual debate is great; that’s how minds are opened and horizons are expanded. Then something happens to people like Mike Weatherley and all I can do is less-than-professionally laugh.

For those of you who are unaware, good sir Mike Weatherley has the esteemed position of being chief adviser on intellectual property to David Cameron (yes, Prime Minister of the UK David Cameron). In his off-time, he is also a gamer. Recently, he has experienced something nearly all gamers experience: someone stole his sword in World of Warcraft, one he bought with real-world money. His reaction to it? The political version of whining to his parents. I’m not going to get into how this may or may not be the morally right way to leverage his position, but instead focus on the experience itself.

Usually, microtransactions are used as a way to enhance a game experience. For example, extra lives or power-ups can be purchased in order for someone to have more fun playing while they’re waiting for the bus, rather than miserably grinding away until these advantages are natively available. This works wonders for bringing in money for the publishers and developers, so much so that it’s quite often taken a bit further than it needs to be, or even should be. The downside to this is that theft is fairly universal, and few things sour an experience than spending $5USD on a cuirass, for example, and having it be swiped from your account (along with other items that may or may not have been purchased with real world money). This is compounded when it happens in a subscription-based game, as it’s easy to view the situation as having been doubly robbed. At this point, it’s perfectly reasonable to feel upset and some people even ‘rage quit’ over the larger instances. At this point, the game experience is completely ruined. Not because of gameplay, graphics, technical problems, or really anything to do with the game itself, but rather the greed and selfishness of a group of players and the open door to them that is microtransactions.

I believe that game experiences should be enjoyable for everyone and I bet there are many who would agree with me. In order for this to happen, though, we need to fix how things are done. Mike Weatherley is of the opinion that thefts of digital goods ought to be punished in the same way that thefts of real-world good are. I believe that a proactive solution would do gamers and developers alike a bit more good than knowing someone, somewhere received a fine of some sorts (assuming, of course, they were tracked down, which would require a lot more resources than it’s really worth). My initial idea is to just nix the microtransactions altogether, but I understand publishers and developers are businesses and still need/want to make more money than the game itself will get them. With that in mind, let’s come up with a few ideas:

• The ability to re-obtain stolen items without spending more money. In order to prevent abuse of this system, the game can keep server-side records of what the account bought, for how much, and by what means did it leave the account’s possession. I suppose this is still open to abuse, since most stolen items are stolen by someone cracking the account’s password and trading the item to the cracker’s actual account (or an alternative account).

• All microtransaction-obtained items are bound to character or account. This would prevent anyone from cracking in and trading it off, but it does not help if someone wants to buy a gift for someone in game (though maybe a redeem code could be purchased for a gift).

• Microtransactions can only apply to buying in-game currency, and currency is account-bound (but not character/soul bound). This way, there are no items at stake, and the player still has the flexibility to outfit any of their characters as they see fit. It’s possible this might also bring in extra money, since not everyone would necessarily be interested in an item, but everyone wants money. The downside is this opens up a whole world of ‘pay-to-win’ problems.

Mike Weatherley is not alone in his loss of an item purchased with real world money in an MMO. This is a very widespread problem that should be looked at quite hard by the developers, as it’s their years of hard work at stake here. Theft of items that require lots of time or real world currency can ruin the entire experience, so it should be addressed proactively, not retroactively by lawmakers using methods that just drain everyone of more resources. I’ve tried to come up with a few simple ways of solving the problem that make everyone happy, but I’d like to hear what you think. What ideas do you or your studio have? Do you think it’s worth it to get lawmakers involved? Why or why not?

Gabby Taylor is an aspiring game designer and head of GreyBox Studio. When not making design documents, she contemplates going outside, and sometimes even takes a few steps when feeling particularly frisky. 

IGDA Webinar: Multiplayer Economies

Last week, I had the pleasure of interviewing game designer Adam Thompson on the topic of Multiplayer Economies during the IGDA's most recent Webinar on Game Design.  Adam Thompson is responsible for economy design on the upcoming MMO, First Earth. 

First Earth

The IGDA Webinars started recently and we hope to cover a lot of interesting topics.  Feel free to suggest topics for upcoming Webinars.  During the Webinar, which happens on every third Wednesday of the month at noon Eastern, attendees can interact with panelists and type in questions.  We have a recording of the Webinar here, but as you will see, it's better as a live event, where you can see the speakers' Webcams. 

If you want to listen in:

Adam Thompson is game developer with twelve years experience in mobile, educational, and multiplayer PC games.  For the last four years he's been consumed developing First Earth, a next-gen game meant to fulfill the promise we saw in classic MMOs like Ultima Online.  He has a particular interest in the philosophy of game design as it relates to multiplayer games. 

Faking an Economy (Part II)

In Part I, MMO developer Brian Green points out that a realistic economic simulation in a MMO may not actually be possible or even fun for the players.  In Part II, he explains how to create a game economy that maximizes fun.

To discuss economic adjustments, we need to have a design for the economy. The traditional and perhaps simplest design for a game economy is called "faucets and drains". In this design, you have sources of income (the faucets) and ways that income can be spent to the game (the drains). Typical faucets include rewards from quests or missions and items of value acquired from defeated enemies. Drains include consumables that must be used in the game, customization options, and taxes such as auction house fees, equipment repairs, etc. Note that faucets only include the situations where the game creates money, and drains only include the situations where the system takes money out of the system.

In the theoretically ideal economy, the faucets and drains should be equal. A player should be spending money as fast as they make it to prevent inflation. However, this isn't terribly fun as we mentioned before. Players want to make a bit more money than they spend, so that they can have a feeling of mastery over or helpfulness in the game. So, ideally, you should deal with a bit of inflation but should avoid hyperinflation, or the rapid increase in money leading to the value of each unit of currency decreasing significantly.

How can a designer balance the economy to maximize fun? It's important to include the proper tools to observe and adjust the economy. Metrics to show the velocity of goods and currency in your game are good to have. Even simply knowing how much money the top earners in your game have in order to track changes from day to day can help give a feel for how the economy is working on a practical level. Your game should then have tools to adjust the economic factors based on your measurements. Being able to increase or decrease randomized rewards, such as the valuable items and currency obtained from defeating an enemy, is important. Adjusting the prices that NPC charge for basic commodities is also useful, especially if you need to give newer players the ability to catch up to more established players. Another tactic is to introduce special deals in the game world for a short period of time; having a special auction of rare items for in-game currency can help reduce some of the excess money in the world. Finally, use your metrics to help notice potential bugs, such as the ability to duplicate money or abuse an NPC's faulty buying or selling routines to earn easy cash. A sudden increase in money supply can indicate the presence of such bugs.

What about the economy that happens between players such as posting goods on the auction hall, crafting, and the like? It's important to remember that a player buying an item at auction isn't really spending the money in terms of the economy, the money is just being transferred from one player to another. Except for taxes such as a fee for posting and/or selling goods, buying an item from an auction isn't a drain in terms of the game economy. However, the game economy and the level of inflation can affect the player to player economy. Players with more money, such as experienced players creating alternate characters ("alts"), will be able to offer more money for similar items compared to a player with less money.

A major component of the player to player economy is usually crafting, or the creation of usable goods from raw materials gathered by the player. This encourages some economic activity as players collect the raw materials and sell those to other players, then as the crafters create the finished product and sell that to others. In general, a game designer won't have to worry too much about this system since players will tend to find an equilibrium point for prices based on the state of the economy. The biggest game design challenge is to limit the creation of raw materials if limits on the number of craftable items; this is similar to limiting the amount of items obtained from other sources that players may want to sell to each other. The second major issue to consider is how fun crafting is. Most players expect a crafting profession that they have invested time into to be useful and even profitable for them. For example, if they have to create 100 level 1 items to get access to level 2 items, they will expect an NPC to buy those level 1 items for some amount of money, for at least as much as the fixed costs of vendor-purchased materials. Making players craft at a loss of income will make crafting unattractive and unfun in a game.

In conclusion, a designer needs to make the game economy fun. Adding controls to the game economy allows the designer some control over the money supply to adjust inflationary pressures. The game economy affects the player to player economy, but a designer has significantly less control over this; on the other hand, players tend to adjust this economy themselves since it usually operates outside of the game system. The biggest issue a designer has to worry about in a player economy is adjusting how often a player can acquire something that others may want to buy. Ultimately, a simulation may be more realistic, but it might not be more fun for the players. Sometimes you just gotta fake it.

Brian Green, known by the pseudonym Psychochild, is an experienced MMO developer. He's best known as the former developer of the classic online MMO Meridian 59 and as the writer for his professional blog.

Faking an Economy (Part I)

In Part I of this article, MMO developer Brian Green points out that a realistic economic simulation in a MMO may not actually be possible or even fun for the players.

Psst. Hey, do you fake it? It's okay, you can confide in me, I won't tell them. I'll admit, I prefer to fake it when I can; it's just a lot more fun that way.

...I'm talking about multiplayer economies! What did you think I was talking about?!

In a multiplayer game, there are actually two different economies: the economy of the game which determines how money enters and leaves the system, and the player to player economy that determines the prices that players will pay each other for goods and services. These two economies are separate but related. I'll focus first on the game economy because that is what designers have the most control over.

The main problem with economics is that few sane people would consider it fun, especially in the context of a game. Who here likes balancing their checkbook? I bet many readers at one time just checked your bank balance on occasion and hoped for the best when a big expense (or party) occurred. So, why should designers make players balance virtual checkbooks to manage their gold pieces? It's just not much fun.

Some people will say that they prefer a simulation of an economy in a game. A designer really needs to consider if a "realistic" economy really does benefit the game. I think that most simulations end up
being terribly unrealistic because people generally don't treat in-game currency like offline money. You also have all sorts of bugs that don't turn up in the offline world; one of my favorite bugs from Meridian 59 was when an non-player character (NPC) gem seller would buy back gems for more than he sold them for under certain circumstances. The NPC was programmed to accept this unfair deal with no reservations, whereas a human businessperson would probably have stopped even the first transaction from taking place.

What does it mean to make the economy fun? From an economic point of view, players have fun in a few ways. Gaining power is fun because it shows mastery of the game; this is usually the point of most multiplayer games with economies in them. Similarly, just getting new items can be fun if they give you new options to play with. Helping other people, particularly your friends, can be enjoyable for people who want to be a positive influence on others. In all these situations, players will want more than enough money to accomplish these things: getting more power (which includes accumulating more money), getting new options (usually in the form of items), and helping others out.

However, if everyone is making money and the money supply continually increases, then you have inflation. Everyone has more money to offer to acquire goods or services they want from other players, driving up the prices for items without a fixed cost. This can have some negative impacts on the game, most notably it becomes harder for new players to participate in the player to player economy since they will usually earn less money than experienced players. Increasing prices also mean that players might become interested in acquiring money with less effort, such as from gold sellers that can affect MMOs. (A discussion of the morality of gold selling is beyond the scope of this post, but let’s agree that it causes issues the designer needs to address.)

Brian Green, known by the pseudonym Psychochild, is an experienced MMO developer. He's best known as the former developer of the classic online MMO Meridian 59 and as the writer for his professional blog.

June 2010: Multiplayer Economies

June 2010's topic, Multiplayer Economies, was submitted by game designer Sande Chen.

She writes:

Games have always had an economy or at least the semblance of an economy. In the ye olden days of single-player RPGs, you trucked your loot to the local merchant and used the gold you earned from it to purchase upgrades. Economies were more socialist by nature: prices were determined by the designer and not governed by any capitalist notions of supply and demand. Usually, the sale price was outrageously low while the purchase price was outrageously high. It was a system of inputs and outputs.

Nowadays, with auction houses and with game companies taking over what used to be the domain of eBay and other third-party intermediaries, players are used to a more dynamic in-game economy. Economies have become more sophisticated. Microtransactions have led to the development of dual currencies: one for in-game transactions and the other for funneling real-world money into the mix. Designers must adapt with the times.

Here are some questions for thought:

• What are the challenges in designing for games with several monetization schemes?
• Do players have different expectations based on monetization schemes?
• How do you deal with on-going fluxes in the economy?
• Do you prefer an open or closed economy?

Sande Chen is a writer and game designer whose work has spanned 10 years in the industry. Her credits include 1999 IGF winner Terminus, 2007 PC RPG of the Year The Witcher, and Wizard 101. She is one of the founding members of the IGDA Game Design SIG.