Purchasable Game Advantages

Games designed so players can spend real world currency to gain in-game advantages.

Most games are created so that they fortunes and misfortunes of players should not be possible to affect from outside the game. While this can be seen as one-half of the idea of the magic circle of games many games do not adhere to it. This simplest example of this is betting games since players can use money to have more resources to bet in the game (and the effects of winning or losing are then transferred back outside the game does not change that money can be used to provide more freedom). The appearance of Massively Multiplayer Online Games introduced another type of example: that of players being able to trade characters and items with each other for real world money.

Examples

Betting games are the most obvious examples of games that have Purchasable Game Advantages. This may that actually money is used as game elements, which happens when friends play Poker, or buy players being able to buy chips for real money at a casino, which is common for how Roulette and Texas Hold'em is played.

Developing characters or acquiring rare equipment in Massively Multiplayer Online Games represent time investments and therefore have some value. This may lead of a trade of game elements which can either be resisted by the developers of game, e.g. World of Warcraft, or embraced and made into a core aspect of the gameplay, as for example Entropia Universe does.

Some games running on social media platforms such as Facebook, e.g. FarmVille and Ravenwood Fair, allow the use of Facebook credits to purchase resources need to complete buildings or quests.

Using the pattern

One aspect of designing for Purchasable Game Advantages is deciding what can be purchased. Resources is an simple option in that each unit of a Resource can be given a monetary value (as for example done in FarmVille and Ravenwood Fair). Some Game Elements can become Purchasable Game Advantages in Online Games, most often Characters since these are directly linked to accounts whose passwords can be traded. Equipment can also be used but these need to be Tradeables. Since this requires that there are several players and makes most sense in Persistent Game Worlds where the purchases can continue to have value, this design solution is make sense for Massively Multiplayer Online Games but also Massively Single-Player Online Games. It should be noted that the pattern can easily emerge in Massively Multiplayer Online Games whether or not designers want to - one example of how to counter this (found for example in World of Warcraft) is to make the action of equipping Equipables into Irreversible Events.

Interface Aspects

Games that actively support Purchasable Game Advantages typically provide Secondary Interface Screens to handle this separate from gameplay.

Consequences

Buying, and selling, game advantages are examples of Extra-Game Actions. Having players be able to purchase advantages can easily disrupt Player Balance as well as reducing the Value of Effort for what other players' have achieved and making Game Mastery less valuable and Game-Induced Player Social Status less trustworthy. Although these effects may be negative, Purchasable Game Advantages also provide players with the Freedom of Choice of avoiding Grinding.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Extra-Game Actions

Can Modulate

Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Massively Single-Player Online Games, Persistent Game Worlds

Can Be Instantiated By

Characters, Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Resources

Equipment together with Tradeables

Can Be Modulated By

Secondary Interface Screens

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

Excise, Game-Induced Player Social Status, Game Mastery, Player Balance, Value of Effort

Equipables together with Irreversible Events

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

Acknowledgements

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