Multiple in-game currencies ?

Hello Unity Developers,

I hope that I post this in the right section.
So, what do you think of the games that have multiple in-game currencies ? I speak about mobile games that have for example Cash and Gold. With both you can buy an item, and also you can buy both with real money if you want to. I know this is some marketing strategy but is this really effective, and how?
I saw that an item costs less when paid with gold (example a car costs 1500$ cash OR 40 gold), so maybe is this a psychological trick ?
What do you think?

P.S. Sorry for my bad english.

 

Is this really "less"? Sure, 40 is a smaller number than 1500, but the actual value of those transactions depends on the relative value of cash and gold.

There are loads of games doing things and often doing it differently, so there's no one answer to this. However, I would assume that, yes, in some cases it's a psychological trick. In other cases it's just catering to different parts of the audience, eg: time rich vs. money rich players.

 

I see normally few approaches.
Main in game currency. This can not be converted to other currency.
You can earn, or gain over the time, or for reached goals.
Allowing buy all, or most of items and perks in game.

Real currency, which is typically converted to in game currency.
Often you can buy more in game currency, for larger payment. It is like bonus, for each extra additional $.
Then there are items, which may be only bought with real currency. Kind of only premium features.

 

it is a psychological trick. If mobile game developers were being clear they would just call it at the actual price it is listed.

like say in cod mobile there a weapon skin that is 3280 cod points. and you get 1100 cod points for $10 bucks. It is a way to obfuscate the actual value so it's harder to relate to the actual value so you don't feel as bad or realize they are for spending $30 bucks.

Multiple currencies is just more obfuscation.

 

While there's some truth to the obfuscation / psychological trick angle*, this particular quoted statement is often false when it comes to mobile games.

On iOS, for instance, the minimum price tier for an in-app purchase is US $0.99c (last I checked, could have changed). That doesn't give much price granularity for cheaper items, so developers get the choice of either a) selling stuff in packs or b) selling an intermediary currency, with which they can then charge what they want. Via Apple they can't charge less than 99c (or whatever), but if they give you 100 credits for that 99c then Apple doesn't care how you price things in credits in your in-game stores.

There are other benefits to intermediary currencies, too: they can be given out in-game where real money can not, and changes to in-game economy can be made without a 3rd party approval process being involved.

* Similar to why many casinos have you purchase chips before playing games.

 

I think it's stronger than that. I've heard that Zynga, who popularized Freemium, looked at Casinos and said "let's do that". That's why you get lots of free gems at first, the tutorial forces you to spend gems so you get in the habit, and you get more free gems for coming back after a while. The theory with chips is people spend more since they feel less like money.

I never understood it, since it you buy $100 worth of chips, you still have $100 until you lose it. But buy $20 worth of gems and the money is gone. But most of this was trial and error. Game X made money doing currency strategy Y, proving Y works.

 

Haha, that doesn't surprise me in the least, though it's not a casino that particular scheme reminds me of...

For people who are in the habit of looking at things objectively, yes. That's a minority of people, though. Many people don't think much past feelings and/or habits. They feel like they already spent the money when they use it to buy chips, and their habits about not wasting money are tied to their cash and their cards rather than arbitrary plastic tokens. That stuff clearly won't work on everyone, but it doesn't have to.

 

But they're asking about designing cash purchases as an _official_ part of the game, the way Freemium mobile games do. WoW decided not to let people buy gold with cash. Gold-sellers appeared and WoW could have cut them off by adding official gold-for-cash, but still decided it would be bad, instead cracking down. But WoW allows cash for a few things: race changes and "up to expansion start" leveling, and the Token system (which I think Eve did first).

 

Yeah Eve Online had a "problem" of unauthorized RMT. At first they went all draconian, tracking money movements in game, but then figured out it would be better for them to just monetize it themselves.

So what CCP (makers of Eve) did was create an in game item which can be used to give 1 month of play time, and now that they have a free tier it provides 1 month of their premium game time. So you can purchase this item with real money, and choose to either use it yourself, or sell it on the in game market. So players with nothing better to do other than grind away, don't have to pay any real money at all for the game. They can just earn in game currency and buy this item with it on the in game market to run their premium accounts. Players with more real money than time can do the reverse, buy this item with real money and sell it for in game currency. I am sure the idea has been copied by now, but I think it was pretty genius at the time. I don't believe CCP has stated it publicly, but I'm convinced that CCP removes these items from the game market themselves to maintain their in game market value, so as to maximize profits. But It is possible they don't.

So within a year or so after implementing this, they effectively killed the unauthorized RMT market in the game. Was just too much of a hassle for a slight discount to deal with the sketchy folks who were doing it, for just a slight discount over doing it the official way.

On the original topic, I hate premium vs regular in game currencies in games, but they have proven popular so what do I know.

 

World of Warcraft copied the system almost exactly from EVE. A month cost $15, or a token that costs $20. The only possible reason to buy a token is to sell it to another player. The only difference is In EVE it costs 500 "PLEX" (which cost $20 to buy).

It works well since they aren't adding gold to the economy. It just moves around between players. And you can only get so much at a time -- other players have to need a month of free game time and decide the price you set is right. The cost of $20 can't really be argued with. Clearly it needs to be over $15. It's not a great deal -- I just read in WoW the selling price is down to $100K. But you can't really argue since other players set the price, just like anything else in the Auction House. Hardcore players like it since they can brag about playing for free, but the company is still making an extra $5 on the subscription, so they're happy.

It's a very, very, very mild way of letting players buy gold.