it breaks down to the mechanics of the game [..]
I guess I am pretty much against games that use any form of real currency [..]
I agree. Introducing real currencies makes everything different, hell of a lot more complicated, but opens op a whole new world of possibilities too.
Many years ago I read Neal Stephenson's REAMDE, where just this is described, a MMORPG with real currency, and free and easy connection to real-world money. Yes, it's just a novel (a good one), but I think he was up to something there.
Also:
if you can buy items with real money (inc btc) it's unfair.. that is the basics of it.. appearance items are ok, but not a Sword of a Thousand Truths which one shots people and only rich people can afford. [..]
That's a problem. So, lets turn this into an opportunity! Like, you may easily (and expensively) buy the "Sword of a Thousand Truths". It costs the awesome amound of 500 gold. To wield it, you have to have an additional 500 gold with you. When wielding it, a huge red arrow points into your direction. Alternatively a huge dollarsign. Or other players can enable, or buy "gold-goggles" for the same effect.
Now when the sword-wielding guy finally is taken down, he drops his gold to be lootet.
What happens? He will kill many many people. Until gangs form and hunt down high-profile players. Goldmules.
This redistributes gold, makes playing possible with no initial bitcoins, makes the game very attractive for, hell, everyone!
And, by "losing" a few percent of the gold each kill/drop/loot you could even finance the whole game eventually.
Oh, use gold and bitcoins, with a slightly floating exchangerate, maybe slightly inflating. Of course the whole new can of worms with the bitcoin exchangerate opens up here.. So, maybe, gold is pegged to USD, with a slight floating and/or inflating exchangerate. Your bitcoins are "just" a method of getting gold in and out of the game, bitpay-style.
By now, after two years this thread is open, I think it's not about Bitcoin in itself or the killeridea how to put Bitcoin into a game. It will all explode once a game with large esthablished playerbase uses Bitcoin (first).
For a newcomer to go viral, it has to measure itself on the big productions, and have Bitcoin as an additional, new, viral component.
Ente