How to Take your Virtual Currency from One Online Game to Another

Battleswarm Field of Honor Combat Strategy Game Dean Takahashi reports in Venturebeat that Reality Gap’s new Battleswarm, come with a very interesting monetization scheme.

This is the first major game to leverage Reality Gap’s MetaTix universal virtual goods system.

It has a currency that gamers can use in different games and can also be licensed by third-party game developers.

What I like about this business model is that the ‘universal virtual goods system may be just the thing to get gamers to do something they rarely do: try out unfamiliar games’.

Dean explains that “MetaTix is a coin of universal currency that is like a token in the old game arcades.

The makers noted that the best way to get gamers to play new games was to put them in a crowded arcade. It seems that gamers loaded with tokens didn’t mind using one token to play a new game.

Reality Gap was setup in 2007 with the aim of making a universal currency that could be used across a whole bunch of online games.

How it works

1. One MetaTix can be purchased for a penny, though most game transactions are more than that.

2. Gamers can buy and sell equipment and make MetaTix currency in the process

3. These can then use in the game or in other MetaTix-based games.

4. You can carry your virtual wallet from game to game

5. You can’t convert it back into cash.

Takeaways

1. The currency system has expiration dates.

2. You can buy virtual goods, such as a flamethrower for $3.50 for a month.

3. After 30 days, it expires and you have to pay again.

This is a very smart way to get a currency across multiple games without the users, ie game players, having to change virtual currencies.

Another option for this type of approach would be to allow users to ‘rent’ skins, backgrounds and other virtual goods that can be used on a try-and-but basis.

Korean online game makers have successfully blended this option into games to ‘tease’ users into trying new avatars and other virtual goods.

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