Gonna bump this one too.
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Throwing in another bump as well. I think this should be implemented before the Flash support is.
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So, to be clear, is my earlier proposal of a coupon system acceptable? It wouldn't be like BYONDimes in a sense of having a global economy, but it would allow easier use of per-game credits.
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I think that the idea of a coupon/global money system would work best as it would allow the player to buy directly from BYOND, then the player uses the funds in the game. Then once or twice a month it could calculate the amount of coupons/Money the game has made. Thus, translating that into a payment to them.
I believe that cash systems like that work just fine, the problem that people run into is the so called "pay to win" type of mechanics. These put features out that allow someone to pay to be as strong as or stronger than someone else. Which means that it would then require a group discussion as to what practices with any kind of subscription/cash shop type of etiquette would be required. As if you have one game that offers rare items, or special weapons then players may look for those things from another game on BYOND. Thus, causing a spiral of internal competition between BYOND developers. When in reality BYOND games should be mingling together in ways to boost the BYOND economy/player base/community. | |
@Tom: Yup. I'd be more than content with something like that!
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Ok, well I think we can at least start with that while we think about the global setup. We got so burned by BYONDimes (which were admittedly implemented way before we had the appropriate audience or infrastructure) that I am wary to go back to something like that. But there is probably a middle ground that will work.
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What happened with BYONDDimes?
Supplying a "voucher" subscription would be the same thing as a money/item type of system as you are giving the player/purchaser something in return for money which then they use on a game, and then the developer of that game turns that into you for compensation. It may be best to learn and figure out what caused the trouble with the old system as any form of cash shop or money transferring system will come with the same pitfalls. | |
I went over the main issue here: http://www.byond.com/forum/?post=1279707#comment4660846
Basically, we've largely moved to a system where the game is handling the transaction and we get a cut afterwards. This is better for us and for the game, since they can also handle refunds and track their users. But it does mean that all transactions are done on a per-game (or per-developer) basis so we can't have a global economy under this system. Nevertheless, it is still pretty flexible and certainly we could handle exchanging money for in-game credits; we just have to adapt the API a little. | |
Exchanging money for in-game credits is the best option, in my opinion. Having per-hub BYOND tokens or a global token system would probably end up being a mess. If I could just sell something like a 500 Token or 1000 Token package on my hub page, that would be fine.
First off, the point of sale is right there with the purchase of the tokens. The benefit of this is all transactions done with the purchased tokens aren't with actual money. Developers won't need any sort of in-game prompts to authorize payments like we did with dimes and since there's only the big token purchase there will be fewer opportunities for chargebacks. Second, it would be much easier to keep track of. Rather than having some sort of convoluted revenue system with payouts based on tokens spent per game you instead just have the BYOND tax right there with the token purchase with the rest of the money going to the developer. There aren't any BYOND tokens to keep track of, it's just a simple one-off purchase. That being said, I still strongly believe there needs to be some sort of automatic revenue splitting system in place for multi-developer games. Something like the humble bundle's contribution divider where you can set what percentage goes to what person. If you wanted to be really cool you could put BYOND in there as a slider too rather than having it sit at a static percentage. | |
Could you set up Byond like a "marketplace" so instead of Byond being a bank they would function more like a marketer, such as the way Amazon works?
Would this concept be more beneficial for both parties as Byond could see purchases being made to take their percentage correctly and developers would have an easier way of handling the payment area without needing to focus on it, if that makes sense. | |
Yes please!