Tag Archives: microtransactions

Making microtransactions more socially acceptable

Microtransactions. There, I said it. A dirty word to some in the gaming industry. Or maybe just misunderstood and poorly implemented?
There’s a commonly-shared belief in the gaming marketplace that games with no monthly fee that are microtransaction-supported are unpalatable to the “serious” MMO gamer. Microtransactions, which offer an alternate (or additional) form of payment to the [...]

Posted in: Business Models, Game Theory, Guild Wars, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Also tagged barriers to entry, community, micropayments, mmorpgs, mmos, monetization, payment systems, premium services, real-money trading, user behaviour

Are microtransactions and legitimized RMT ruining MMOs?

I was sitting on the beach yesterday, reading a recent Wired feature by Julian Dibbell describing the rise and fall of Internet Gaming Entertainment (better known to most MMO players as IGE) and its founder, Brock Pierce. Dibbell’s article went into some detail on Pierce’s life during the dot-com bubble, as well as his shady [...]