Icarus Studios News

There are few topics about virtual worlds that provoke a stronger reaction than real-money transfer (RMT). Since the earliest days of both text and graphical worlds, time, not money, has been the crucial currency of success. In the egalitarian society of simulated environments, all characters are created equal and all have the same ultimate possibilities if their players just devote enough time.

This view is, of course, not the whole story. The equality of subscription-based worlds naturally favors those with more time: individuals without demanding jobs, children, or even other hobbies. In a normal model for a virtual world, the college student that plays dozens of hours a week is always well ahead of the individual with kids and a demanding job who can maybe log in briefly in the evening and for a few hours on the weekend. With more game-based worlds creating content that requires extensive group coordination and practice to enjoy, those with the time and inclination have a dramatic advantage over others.

RMT changes this dynamic, but in a way that opens up new problems. The most common understanding of RMT is paying real world money for an advantage in the virtual world: game currency, powerful items, special powers, etc. Generally, advantages purchased through RMT are equivalent to things that could be earned with several hours of patient gameplay; in fact, black market RMT happens when users pay other players to farm currency, level characters, or otherwise trade their money directly for time played. However, if a world’s creators actively embrace RMT, it’s easy to create advantages that can only be acquired by real money, rather than time played.

Traditional players are annoyed by gold farming and power leveling, but actively antagonistic to the idea that important advantages cannot be attained through hard work within the sphere of the world. Yet, traditional players are typically the ones most willing and able to spend vast amounts of time on their game of choice. And, while they may hate the idea of spending extra money or even paying a full subscription fee, they are also the dedicated players most likely to stick to your world for years and attract their friends to your world. Trying to monetize them further and driving them away may be a bigger loss than their single subscription fees would indicate.

Ultimately, the decision to incorporate RMT into a world is one that must be made carefully. It is in many ways a better-scaling monetization scheme than subscriptions, and, even if you use subscriptions, a black market may arise that creates RMT in a way that is detrimental to the world and which returns no money to the publisher. However, part of the allure of virtual worlds is that they are a new frontier, where a pioneering spirit and dedication is more important than a healthy bank account. To have RMT be valuable to the publisher, you have to convince your users that their money buys something worthwhile. To keep dedicated players from abandoning your game, they have to feel that RMT is essentially optional, and does not provide advantages unattainable with time and effort.

It’s a delicate line to walk, and it’s even harder if you don’t incorporate the expectation of RMT into your world from the very beginning. When planning your virtual world, defining the exact parameters of its RMT should be one of your first discussions, as its presence can both ensure the financial success of your world and drive away what would have been your core users. RMT may pave the way to the future, but the road is still uphill.

-Stephen Cheney, Virtual Worlds Team