Purchasable Game Advantages

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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[1] 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

Game-Induced Player Social Status

Freedom of Choice 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.

Collaborative Actions

Resources


Player Balance

Private Game Spaces

Massively Single-Player Games

Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

Narrative Aspects

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.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Extra-Game Actions

with ...

Can Modulate

-

Can Be Instantiated By

Characters

Equipment together with Tradeables

Can Be Modulated By

-

Possible Closure Effects

-

Potentially Conflicting With

Game Mastery, Player Balance, Value of Effort

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

  1. Salen, K & Zimmerman, E. (2003). Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals. The MIT Press. ISBN 0262240459

Acknowledgements

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