Every successful game development software system has a steady way of raking in income. Unity3d for instance. They have what is just about nearly what I've described, an item mall, they simply implement it differently. Adding a feature that would allow members who already have a membership (one the membership info is already stored, so how is Byond "doing" anything for me?) By simply adding one or two new things that would A) Allow byond to make some money and B) act as an incentive for serious minded people who are also interested in generating money from their work. How is that "silly"? What I am quite annoyed by lately is people telling me how "childish" or "silly" a suggestion is based on their own opinion. | |
Oy, avoid the clout. We don't need to get all zen like and bicker.
I don't know the current status of BYONDimes, though I believe they were really underutilized. Does anyone know what happened to them? | |
They were outed years ago, I had around 2000 of them on an old key...
I simply provided a solution. Maybe Tom should reply here as after all he is the one that makes the changes no us. I would suggest doing it yourself the profit that can be made from any of this is low very low .. Example $1 subscription for a week 10% goes to BYOND ... BYOND makes next to nothing for a system that may of taken weeks to produce? A system that people would more than likely whine about with the "lack of features" and the "instability" Like I said before its up to Tom and I gave you a solution which would greatly improve your game outside of BYOND. | |
SqueakyReaper wrote:
Oy, avoid the clout. We don't need to get all zen like and bicker. This is what I'm saying: Meesa logs in. I buy 10 bucks worth of ByondDimes. That might give me say 500 ByondDimes. These ByondDimes are not stored in a specific game, they are stored with your membership info. In other words you can spend them on games that have the necessary features implemented, allowing you to purchase whatever the game happens to be selling with ByondDimes. For instance: Uber Mega Sword A- purchasable for 50 ByondDimes using the ByondCurrency() proc, etc. People here just like to argue for the sake of argument I've learned. It's not really like i asked anyone to wander here and comment on anything I've written. People just feel this overwhelming need to input.. *shrug* | |
Whoaa nelly!
"People here just like to argue for the sake of argument I've learned. It's not really like i asked anyone to wander here and comment on anything I've written. People just feel this overwhelming need to input.. *shrug*" I gave you a solution I wasn't arguing with you.. BYONDimes were outted for a reason. | |
Byond Dimes were used to buy icons,etc. . I'm talking about using real money to buy virtual objects, items, for avatars that won't exist outside of the game you purchase them for.
It's quite successful(mobsters on myspace, facebook games like farmville), people just started using the term Byond Dimes.. I never once mentioned that. If that's silly then it's silly I guess.*shrug* You sort of implied that my purpose in starting this post is because I wanted someone to do it for me. I have a whole other website with a mysql db attached to it that I never used, because I was teaching myself php/mysql. But that was over two years ago. To be honest.. I had already looked at and downloaded over half of those mysql libs before you even gave me a link. I'm just not a blazing private eye, so I wasn't going to be mule about it and be like "oh i don't need that ha ha ha" nose turn* | |
BYONDimes were bought with real money. They were then used to buy in game things. It's just what you're asking for.
The MySQL libs can be difficult to grab at, but having the system entirely under your control is pretty nice. | |
Games like Farmville are popular ...
Nestaglia may be the only game on BYOND to actually use this system with large results... unlike the odd purchase here and there on random mini games. I would love to hear from Tom on this. | |
It was my understanding that BYONDimes were discontinued because of widespread fraud and charge-backs, causing it to actually cost BYOND more money than it made. But I could be misremembering. Either way, Tom would probably want to implement some heavier restrictions if he decided to re-implement a micro-transaction model. Maybe requiring hubs to be approved before they can use the system, or having an "inaccessible period" of a week or so after "credits" are purchased to reduce the chance of chargebacks on already-spent credits.
I think I've still got $7.50 in BYONDimes from a contest. Not really sure how to spend it, so I guess I'll just hold on to them as a sort of trophy... Also, Dariuc, we're a community; We... commune? | |
I still agree with both of you but I still believe marketing your game outside of BYOND is a major plus and is easily done in the way of and item mall or subscriptions...
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I am all for this or to be honest easily doing it my way without waiting for Tom and bug fixes...
The whole system is in your hands and 100% customizable to the needs of the game or games..... BYONDs method would be per hub and mostl likely would not combined multiple hubs... Not to mention more bandwidth on BYONDs end... Still like to hear from Tom.... | |
The BYONDime system (which is what this is) doesn't really work for us, because we get a higher than normal amount of chargebacks, and with a generic currency there is no accountability (that is, we have to accept both the loss of income AND the large chargeback fee). We're thinking about some per-game currency ideas by allowing one-time subscription purchases for individual games (so instead of subscribing someone to a game for a period of time, you could sell units of currency for your game).
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Instead of the subscription system as it is, I have a few ideas for changes:
o) People buy "units" of currency, specific to the game. This is done the same way subscriptions currently are done. o) Games who use a time-based subscription, like all do at the moment, would say "5$ = 6 months", or something similarly blatant on the hub. o) "Under the hood", it'd really be "6 units", which would deduct by one each month. It's up to the game to deduct these units. o) Games that would rather use a cash system list how many units you actually get from a purchase. "5$ = 100 [insertvaluename]". o) In game, the player would exchange these units for something. The game has to take care of these deductions themselves. Would something like this work? One forseeable problem is a lack of transparency, if the user is not shown how many "units" they have. Also, you'd have to trust each game not to deduct secret charges. But because each real money purchase is specific to the game, they can't shadily draw from your overall pool of money. | |
Tom wrote:
We're thinking about some per-game currency ideas by allowing one-time subscription purchases for individual games (so instead of subscribing someone to a game for a period of time, you could sell units of currency for your game). How about a per developer currency. Developers could do this on their own, but if you setup the system the developers can easily integrate it into the games/hub and you get a cut. What this would be called, I have no idea. BYOND needs more games, especially small casual games (especially with the Flash client), but these games don't make money without the developer getting money from ads or microtransactions. But microtransactions don't work with two middlemen and no bulk purchases. You can't make something cheap enough but also get a decent enough cut out of it. And like you mentioned, chargebacks. So there needs to be bulk purchases to buy a currency that can then be used for microtransactions. The problem with per-game currencies (and even per-developer, but at least it's a step up) is each small casual game can't get one person to pay a lot of money, so there needs to be a bigger pool of a currency that is spent on multiple games. This is why games on Facebook work so well. People buy Facebook currency and then use small amounts they'd never purchase individually to buy something small in a small casual game. It all adds up. There are game companies with Facebook games that are filthy rich now and they get the short end of the stick. I know why you don't want to do BYONDimes, but there are ways around the issues and there is so much money to be made. Only allow trusted games to accept them and only allow trusted developers with $100 or more to withdraw. Do not allow trading of them. Once they are spent, they turn to money. Track the transactions and if there is a chargeback in BYONDimes, take the amount back from the developers the person spent the BYONDimes on. The subscription model doesn't work for everything. The ad model does, but unless you share ad revenue, it's not an option for the developers. With the Flash client coming up, there's so much potential for a flood of small casual games, but there needs to be a way to make money off them. Even if you rely on hobbyists, it still costs money to host things and buy domains, outside marketing, whatever else is needed. Just wanted to bump this. I know I've hounded you guys about this stuff since you got rid of them, but I think it is very important and will continue to do for the foreseeable future. Help me (and whoever else) make us all money from smaller casual games (and the bigger ones too). I will be releasing a small casual game soon and plan many many others (big projects are just too draining for one person), but if they don't get a way to make money, I will have to scrap them or port them or something. | |
Aaiko wrote:
Track the transactions and if there is a chargeback in BYONDimes, take the amount back from the developers the person spent the BYONDimes on. I like this. Just have a month vesting period. Adsense does it with invalid ad clicks. | |
As longs as it doesn't keep that name, it's a great idea.
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Clearly BYOND should add support for Bitcoins.
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And if you want to make a system like that game you posted prior, This is the way to do it relying on BYOND hub to do this is a silly move everything should be external.