Ignoring the psychological reasons for using a secondary currency, there's a couple of economic reasons as well: first is to limit the number of credit card purchases, since each one has fees associated with it (especially if dealing with foreign currency). Second is that it makes handling refunds super easy since you're just returning in-game currency instead of needing to return actual currency to a credit card (or the negative side of that: where it makes refusing refunds super easy, since you're not dealing with a real currency at that point). If you make using secondary currencies illegal then I doubt anything costing less than $5 would be worth selling.
I dunno, Nintendo is managing to sell single buck costumes for Smash and the like without any secondary currencies and it doesn't seem to be losing them any money..
Second is that it makes handling refunds super easy since you're just returning in-game currency instead of needing to return actual currency to a credit card (or the negative side of that: where it makes refusing refunds super easy, since you're not dealing with a real currency at that point).
In Australia, consumer law forces sellers to give refunds in cash for defective goods or goods sold deceptively, if the customer demands it.
So trying to be smart with funbuck 'refunds' sounds like a good way to get the ACCC suing you to the tune of $Steam.
A number of gaming companies are psychological predators first and foremost. This is something that game developers are discussing actively, as some of us have better or worse ethics. The games industry is absolutely aware of this. We literally hire psychologists to figure out how to get past your mental defenses.
As an aside, a lot of people weren't aware of this, but Blizzard hired an on staff psychologist (or was it a few?) to figure out how to make their games more addicting. Particularly WoW, which was gearing up for its first expansion.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I mean, it's possible that 'economist' was shorthand for 'psychologist but studies a large number of people at once', but it always seemed to me that the Valve economist was hired because Valve had created a hat-conomy and was afraid they might break it somehow.
And then the economist did not much.
I mean, it's possible that 'economist' was shorthand for 'psychologist but studies a large number of people at once', but it always seemed to me that the Valve economist was hired because Valve had created a hat-conomy and was afraid they might break it somehow.
And then the economist did not much.
Steam annual revenue is higher than the GDP of Sierra Leon. It has 3-4 different currencies between the various cosmetics trades, all of which were used for both money laundering and as alternative currency for illegal betting on eSports, a bunch of weird usage patterns (I own 200 games, 150 never installed, but I'm on my 23rd skyrim repaly), etc.
They should have a whole team of economists studying different bits of the thing. How do you run it if you don't understand it.
I mean, it's possible that 'economist' was shorthand for 'psychologist but studies a large number of people at once', but it always seemed to me that the Valve economist was hired because Valve had created a hat-conomy and was afraid they might break it somehow.
And then the economist did not much.
The economist employed by Valve was literally made Minister of Finance for Greece after leaving Valve.
I mean, it's possible that 'economist' was shorthand for 'psychologist but studies a large number of people at once', but it always seemed to me that the Valve economist was hired because Valve had created a hat-conomy and was afraid they might break it somehow.
And then the economist did not much.
The economist employed by Valve was literally made Minister of Finance for Greece after leaving Valve.
I mean, it's possible that 'economist' was shorthand for 'psychologist but studies a large number of people at once', but it always seemed to me that the Valve economist was hired because Valve had created a hat-conomy and was afraid they might break it somehow.
And then the economist did not much.
The economist employed by Valve was literally made Minister of Finance for Greece after leaving Valve.
I mean, it's possible that 'economist' was shorthand for 'psychologist but studies a large number of people at once', but it always seemed to me that the Valve economist was hired because Valve had created a hat-conomy and was afraid they might break it somehow.
And then the economist did not much.
The economist employed by Valve was literally made Minister of Finance for Greece after leaving Valve.
Can't win them all.
He advocated for some pretty radical ideas that were soundly rejected by the EU, but you can't claim the man didn't try to help his country.
About two years ago I was at GDC, and they had booths where the actual product they were advertising was being a consulting firm for the maximization of in game transactions. Well, that and cryptocurrencies... so many cryptocurrencies!
That said, his model should be hats/guns/earbuds/keys/Max Heads, with earbuds/keys/Max Heads being currency and in equilibrium, and hats/guns being continuously injected into the game and so not in equilibrium.
I believe that a lot depends on the policies that each country adheres to and the rules that they follow. Do not forget that gambling supported by gaming platforms enjoys great popularity among users and if they are now banned in the country, it is not known what the consequences will be. More recently, I've started to notice that gambling is a great way to make money. Thanks to แทง บอล, I bet on soccer games and make good profits. It would be nice if there were more strategies for making money using bets on the Internet. However, I had to learn from my own mistakes and gain valuable experience.
The money you make is almost certainly less than others have lost though.
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I dunno, Nintendo is managing to sell single buck costumes for Smash and the like without any secondary currencies and it doesn't seem to be losing them any money..
In Australia, consumer law forces sellers to give refunds in cash for defective goods or goods sold deceptively, if the customer demands it.
So trying to be smart with funbuck 'refunds' sounds like a good way to get the ACCC suing you to the tune of $Steam.
As an aside, a lot of people weren't aware of this, but Blizzard hired an on staff psychologist (or was it a few?) to figure out how to make their games more addicting. Particularly WoW, which was gearing up for its first expansion.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
And then the economist did not much.
Steam annual revenue is higher than the GDP of Sierra Leon. It has 3-4 different currencies between the various cosmetics trades, all of which were used for both money laundering and as alternative currency for illegal betting on eSports, a bunch of weird usage patterns (I own 200 games, 150 never installed, but I'm on my 23rd skyrim repaly), etc.
They should have a whole team of economists studying different bits of the thing. How do you run it if you don't understand it.
The economist employed by Valve was literally made Minister of Finance for Greece after leaving Valve.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Can't win them all.
Yup, Yanis Varoufakis.
Steam | XBL
He advocated for some pretty radical ideas that were soundly rejected by the EU, but you can't claim the man didn't try to help his country.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/economics/arbitrage-and-equilibrium-in-the-team-fortress-2-economy/
That said, his model should be hats/guns/earbuds/keys/Max Heads, with earbuds/keys/Max Heads being currency and in equilibrium, and hats/guns being continuously injected into the game and so not in equilibrium.
The money you make is almost certainly less than others have lost though.
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