Why is BTC not used in Games?

[thermos]

bitcoin is the game my name is: m u d ~;)NYC

[firefop]

Because game designers have a profit model that works... and they don't want to risk changing it.

This is why there haven't been any good mmos released since vanguard. (which was an amazing game as originally designed but quickly destroyed by sony's economic fixes after release).

But look - there's absolutely no reason that a game couldn't use bitcoin for it's in game currency. Each account would simply have a keypair (servers would have to have private keys). You could build a very interesting economic model inside a game... with resources and things being created as bitcoin is purchased via the game interface (either through sub fees or buying actual bitcoin from the gamesite using traditional payment methods).

So maybe you spend 0.0001 btc on some consumable item - well that bitcoin is broken up and distributed in game in the form of resources spawning etc. It would have to be extremely rare to find actual coin on a mob... but it really could be constructed in such a way as to make sense.

You could even make it free to play... with the game making funds off scraping a percentage off btc transactions and also of course selling virtual items (bound and/or consumables).

[cbeast]

They will be. One day soon Bitcoin will be an *overnight* new sensation that nobody has heard of. Chances are, they will use coloredcoins or some variation thereof to keep them proprietary to their system. Because they won't use bitcoins directly, but only the Bitcoin network, they can call them SonyCoins or XBcoins or some such brand name.

[tokeweed]

... and I don't mean dice, poker, roulette and all this stuff in which BTC is used a lot. I mean real games. At least in Germany it's legal to play online for money, when not luck but skill decides wheter you win or loose ... So, BTC could be the universal curency for the Gamer-Universe, and I think it would be extremely cool to transfer the money you found in World of Warcraft to some other Online-Role-Game - also the providers could earn via provision - so: why is this not?

this is a good idea. i think ripple is perfect for this as it can trade multiple currencies as long as the gateway supports it. i am slowly becoming a believer in ripple (the network, not the xrp) the more i read about it.

it really might be the next step after bitcoin.

[Tzupy]

The idea is good but it needs refining, here are my 2 satoshis. To get BTC widely adopted and the price rise high:
1) We need a free-to-play MMORPG in which you can ONLY buy in-game currency with BTC.
The amount of items (weapons, armor, scrolls, books, potions) that you can buy should be limited, for fairness,
to let's say 0.1 - 0.2 BTC per player. If there would be 5 - 10 million players, that could amount to 1 million BTC
added to the demand for BTC, which should keep the price above 200$ (at current difficulty rates).
2) Such a MMORPG should be really good, I mean not a POS that you can play for free, but a game in which
you should enjoy spending your time. So it's creation won't come cheap, probably around 10 million $.
3) The people who would invest in the creation of such a game should be large BTC holders, and they would sell their
BTC to the game players. Once the players get used to BTC for the game, they might use them for other purposes.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Most games prefer to have the monopoly on money creation. They cannot create bitcoin!

This.  Looking it at the game company perspective why would they want you to use Bitcoins when they can make you use credits or gold or whatever they want and print quadrillions of units for nothing.

[Epicurus]

The only time I think you could truly get away with micro-transactions and such is if you were running something like Second Life to cover the costs of having stuff uploaded and things like that but there really has to be better way of doing this sort of thing.

The only time you could get away with microtransactions? What are you smoking?

Almost every MMO in existence is free-to-play with microtransactions today. There are only a few hold-outs left, like WoW, and even WoW engages in microtransactions on top of their subscription model.

Similarly, most people who game today (most gamers are on mobile) are playing microtransaction games. Every single top-grossing game on iOS and android is microtransaction.

[OverallGreatGuy]

... and I don't mean dice, poker, roulette and all this stuff in which BTC is used a lot. I mean real games. At least in Germany it's legal to play online for money, when not luck but skill decides wheter you win or loose ... So, BTC could be the universal curency for the Gamer-Universe, and I think it would be extremely cool to transfer the money you found in World of Warcraft to some other Online-Role-Game - also the providers could earn via provision - so: why is this not?

That's actually a really good fucking idea... at least I think so.  People could set up sites where you play competitive computer games for money, like Starcraft for example.

[daybyter]

So I had this idea for a retro-game, but there's one problem: cheating by scripting.

If you have a good workaround, we'd be much further...

http://zapsoda.yunga.de/

[prophetx]

No massive games? I am not in the gamer-scene, but as I heard, there has been a mass of online-multiplayer games, don't know the names, but I think this industry had made big steps the last years ...

The same reason every government prefers to have their own sort of money, to profit from it.

But do developers have any profit from the currency inside their game? I don't think so. With BTC they could.

As I thouught about it, my idea was, that you pay say 1$ for entrance, and you get 90 % of it in Satoshis - a lot of money to play. And you can transfere it to other games, little ones for smartphones, big ones for Wow, Starcraft, etc.

What do you think this will do to the BTC economy?

of course they make money from in game currency, if the economy is set up correctly people play more, the game is sticky and they dont go to other games.  what you propose does not make business sense for them.

if they used bitcoins or any outside currency they cannot control the economy.

and how is a monster supposed to drop btc? or do you think people would want to play PvP if they knew getting killed would result in them losing their 10 BTC, real life money.

think about it a bit.

[Itcher]

No massive games? I am not in the gamer-scene, but as I heard, there has been a mass of online-multiplayer games, don't know the names, but I think this industry had made big steps the last years ...

The same reason every government prefers to have their own sort of money, to profit from it.

But do developers have any profit from the currency inside their game? I don't think so. With BTC they could.

As I thouught about it, my idea was, that you pay say 1$ for entrance, and you get 90 % of it in Satoshis - a lot of money to play. And you can transfere it to other games, little ones for smartphones, big ones for Wow, Starcraft, etc.

What do you think this will do to the BTC economy?

of course they make money from in game currency, if the economy is set up correctly people play more, the game is sticky and they dont go to other games.  what you propose does not make business sense for them.

if they used bitcoins or any outside currency they cannot control the economy.

and how is a monster supposed to drop btc? or do you think people would want to play PvP if they knew getting killed would result in them losing their 10 BTC, real life money.

think about it a bit.

I don't understand, how they achieve income with an ingame-currency. Do gamer change real money against in-game-Taler? I thought concepts like this are just adopted by warhammer and magic the gathering and so on ... my idea for the game developers was that they could profit via import/export-fees.

And to the monster: yes, it would be annoying if a monster kills 10 btc. That's a good question, and if wow earns btc alway when a monster kills a good-stuffed-player ... yes, that's strange.  But I think if you don't play with btc but with satoshis this is (actually) not a great problem. I thought about satoshis to protect kids for spending too much money, btw.

I am happy many here like the idea. I looked inside the gambling / project development section, and there are some interesting projects. I hope they have success.

[polarhei]

Not fully ready. Or there may be something new in Games.

[Itcher]

interesting article in the news-section: The guardian about dragon's tale - a mmorpg-casino game ... sounds like a trend in a good direction ... the developer has been involved in mmorpg for 15 years ... also, a link from the guardian - http://www.steambits.com/ - here you can buy access to online-games via btc. As I see it's a lot cheaper than in the electro-discount.

It looks like the train is getting loaded (slowly).

The one of the gumble-section I meant was this https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=236428.0 (CoinsVictory).

[edmundedgar]

There's some relevant stuff in this awesome piece about the evil tricks used to monetize free-to-play games.

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RaminShokrizade/20130626/194933/The_Top_F2P_Monetization_Tricks.php

Premium Currencies

To maximize the efficacy of a coercive monetization model, you must use a premium currency, ideally with the ability to purchase said currency in-app. Making the consumer exit the game to make a purchase gives the target's brain more time to figure out what you are up to, lowering your chances of a sale. If you can set up your game to allow “one button conversion”, such as in many iOS games, then obviously this is ideal. The same effect is seen in real world retail stores where people buying goods with cash tend to spend less than those buying with credit cards, due to the layering effect.

Purchasing in-app premium currency also allows the use of discounting, such that premium currency can be sold for less per unit if it is purchased in bulk. Thus a user that is capable of doing basic math (handled in a different part of the brain that develops earlier) can feel the urge to “save money” by buying more. The younger the consumer, the more effective this technique is, assuming they are able to do the math. Thus you want to make the numbers on the purchase options very simple, and you can also put banners on bigger purchases telling the user how much more they will “save” on big purchases to assist very young or otherwise math-impaired customers.

Having the user see their amount of premium currency in the interface is also much less anxiety generating, compared to seeing a real money balance. If real money was used (no successful game developer does this) then the consumer would see their money going down as they play and become apprehensive. This gives the consumer more opportunities to think and will reduce revenues.

Interestingly a lot of the things that work against Bitcoin compared to an in-game currency probably work _for_ Bitcoin for regular purchases compared to cash. For example, paying with Bitcoin probably gives you a layering effect that makes it easier to make people spend in a regular shop because (I'm guessing) Bitcoin feels less like real money than money taken direct from your bank account by your credit card. But games are still probably better off with their own in-game currencies. (If your customers have Bitcoins, you should let them buy your in-game currency with them...)

What I have been pushing for (and written code to do) is to use Bitcoin in OpenSim, the free, decentralized version of Second Life. This is a bit less like a regular game, and more like a 3D version of the internet. But even there, some people will probably be better off with their own in-grid currencies, which can be bought with Bitcoins.