Saturday, September 23, 2006

Phoney Worlds, Play Money?

In the article "The End of Cash as We Know it?", Patsy Everett forsees mobile phones being used more and more as a means for making payments of an expanding variety of goods and services. In the near-term, such goods and services may be limited to those provided to the phone user through their carrier. As the article states, "The consumer is not interested in the payment mechanism the retailer is going to use...Consumers do not want an interesting experience with an interactive payment product; they wwant it to be quick, easy and secure."
Now this discussion may seem a bit off-topic for the theme of this blog, but it has made me wonder if the electronic payments for goods and services delivered to mobile phones isn't more like MMOG economies than it might first appear. Janet H. Murray, in her book "Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace" describes digital environments as having four main characteristics: they are procedural , participatory, spatial and encyclopedic. Let's see if the mobile phone ecosystem and its members and services fit this description.
Procedural - Phone transactions are highly automated. That is, they follow very specific and often lenghty procedures (steps) in order to accomplish even basic tasks like dialing a phone number, sending a message or announcing an incoming call with a ringtone and caller ID.
Participatory - The purpose of the phone network and the phones themselves is to put us in communication with other phone network "members." Some carriers (e.g. Cingular) even provide status information about other members, like whether a person in you contact list has there phone on or if they would rather not be disturbed.
Spatial - When you call someone, in a way you are "transporting" or "connecting" yourself to their location. It's as if you are right there talking to them. Phone services also include features for seeing your location or someone else's on a map and providing directions to that location from where you are.
Encyclopedic - The phone network and its users have information and provide access to information. The phone remembers your recent calls. Data services like email and web browsing provide access to personal and public information.

With this new perspective of the cellular phone network as a virtual game, we can examine its economy in the same light as MMOGs.
Paying "real" money for "virtual" currency - Prepay phone services take your real-world cash and give you a number of units/minutes/credits, etc. which you can exchanges for goods or services provided by the phone carrier.
Receive free or discounted services in exchange for receiving advertising - Coming soon to a phone near you! See this MarketWatch article regarding Google's efforts in this area.
Be someone different - I can have different status, standing and appearance in my phone "persona" than I do in real life.
Generate and accumulate virutal wealth - Prepaid carrier Tracfone has a referral system that earns 120 minutes. Receiving ads (see above) is a way to earn minutes on Virgin Mobile phones.
Selling accounts for real dollars - Prepaid phone minutes/credits/etc. are associated with a particular physical phone. You could potentially earn a lot of free minutes and then sell the phone. Search "tracfone phone" on eBay and you will see phone with minutes being sold for prices that should at least cover the original cost of the phone - just like MMOG players who sell their accounts when leaving a game so they recoup some of what they spent on playing.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Balancing Act

One of the fairly common economic characteristics among MMORPGs is that they "print money" at a steady rate. That is, there is a constant influx of new currency (gold, gil, credits, etc.) due to drops from monsters, rewards from missons and quests, and infinitely replenishing natural resources (e.g. gold mining in WOW). Would is be better to limit the money supply - which could drive up the real world cost and sales of virtual currencies, or to have currency flow even more freely in the game - possibly disrupting game balance and marginalizing the value and role of currency?(see previous post "The End of the Game?")

Some people have suggested built in money "drains" like taxes (e.g. MMORPG economy problem solved?) but many players feel that online gaming would lose its fun factor when it becomes too much like the real world.

My suggestion? Provide, at least in some part, currency that expires - like coupons or frequent flier miles. For example, you trade in unwanted items to a merchant in the game and you get back a note which expires in 30 days. I believe this would also curb the out-of-game sales (which some game operators apparently would like to do) or instead drive down prices because of the urgency to sell (hmm - that could actually cause more volume of sales as a result of the lower cost of money). Another possible effect of this proposal is that players would be compelled to log in more frequently in order to "use it or lose it." This would be desirable for games that want players to generate hits on in-game ads (*cough* Anarchy Online). Of course if you're a game operator - or player - who prefers fewer people on yor server then you could have the expiration days only tick down on days when the player i slogged into the game.

There. Problem solved.

Saturday, September 09, 2006

The End of the Game?

I have been playing Animal Crossing: Wild World for some time now and I'm near the point where I have almost all of the items I care to collect and the amount of money ("bells" in this case) I have is irrelevant because it far surpasses the cost of anything I would buy. There are no ongoing costs so nothing I have is at risk of being lost. I'm in a similar position in Nintendogs, with only the most expensive living room style to purchase (Outer Space) and I'm only a few disc competition victories from that purchase. In Tiger Woods golf the money became irrelevant to me a long time ago, but there are still so many accomplishments left so that is what's driving me to continue to play the game occasionally.

This phenomena is driven mostly by two factors. One, the game can only be loaded with a finite variety of things to purchase and secondly, the publisher wants you to move on to the next game because they can't make any more money from you otherwise. These factors are both reversed in the case of MMORPGs. They can provide more and better goodies and costs over time and they don't at all want you to leave their game for another. I would, however, expect a little better balance in the game so that the money continues to be relevant up until the point you feel satisfied with you accomplishments and are itching to move on to another game.

For game titles that have sequels - some on an annual basis like Tiger Woods and other sports offerings - there still is something missing. What about keeping your funds from your earlier game version(s) in an acocunt (file) that can be accessed by all of the games in that franchise. So, the money I earned in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2005 can be used when I start TWPT 2006. Whatever I earn in 2005 or 2006 goes into the same "fund." The games could have hyper-expensive items that rely on you to have played multiple titles in the franchise. You could go back to earlier versions to earn the basic items more easily, so this strategy might even drive retro sales. You shouldn't have to buy a predecessor title to enjoy the latest edition, but it would enhance and extend your experience if you did.

Nintendo has achieved this with their Pokemon titles which let you transfer Pokemon caught in different editions of the game (Ruby, Sapphire, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Emerald, etc.) between game cartridges. The transferred Pokemon even grow up faster if they have been transferred so there is a benefit to trading with friends or buying multiple cartridges so you can trade among your own (guilty as charged!). While you can't trade money directly between games, you can pass valuable items across cartridges and then trade them in for cash at one of the Pokemarts in the game world.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Sir Prize

A couple of weeks ago BusinessWire reported that T-Mobile is offering Sennari's PrizePlay(TM) gaming service on its t-zones service under a new dedicated Play for Prizes category. The PrizePlay titles include: Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders, Triple Towers (Solitaire), Mahjong, Star Trek, Poker Battle and Goldenballs (Pachinko). The service brings some game economics to mobiles, offering in-game transactions that involve storing points, currencies, tokens, or coupons, pay-per-play and in-game prizing. Customers pay for each game, which is billed directly via their phone bill, for the opportunity to earn Bling, which can be redeemed for prizes. Users pay GBP 3 to download the game, which has inclusive tokens. Additional tokens are only 50 pence a piece when they are bought in packs. A bundle of GBP 5 includes two extra tokens. PrizePlay games give users the ability to win merchandise, such as digital downloads, electronic goods and high street retail gift certificates. Prizes are redeemed directly from the mobile game or via the web at www.prizeplay.com or t-zones' Play for Prizes page. All games use the same PrizePlay tokens for payment, so users can send tokens to their friends via SMS messaging.

The first interesting aspect here is that the phone bill essentially becomes a "credit card" for paying for gaming.

Second, while the Bling doesn't seems to be transferrable, the tokens for playing the game are. Will we see a "reselling" market for the tokens? - either for cash, or people bartering with friends like "do my math homework for me and I'll send you 10 tokens."

Third, will there be some sort of exchange rate between these tokens and other virtual prestige point systems like Kudos on myspace or Karma on blogshares?

We'll have to wait and see.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Coin Ops

Habbo Hotel has to have the most options for purchasing their currency that I've seen so far. Habbo Coins can be used to buy stuff to decorate your room, buy gifts for friends, join an exclusive VIP club within the game and purchase in-game games - which can earn you additional game currency. This is another fixed exchange currency, at 5 per USD. No need to sneak around in back alleys of the internet to find someone with a virtual trenchcoat to part with your real money. Habbo will gladly take your real world money (or withdraw from you real world credit card) directly from any of these sources:


  • Credit card
  • CVS prepaid Habbo Cards (!)
  • USA home phone
  • USA cell phone
  • Click & Buy
  • Money orders
  • Canada home phone
  • UK cell phone
  • UK home phone

So it would be hard to be anywhere in North America where you *couldn't* get your hands on this shiny virtual coinage!