I think BYOND Bucks© would be a great idea. I plan on having such micro-transactions as a major element in Paradise Falls, and my Unity project if that ever gets finished.

They could be useful for more than just in-game items. They could also be used to buy game subscriptions, or even BYOND memberships. This way there is only a single "Give us your money!" page, and then once an account is loaded with BYOND Bucks© it can be spent freely across the site and throughout all BYOND games, without having to worry about sending your credit card to strangers every time. This would also allow people to easily send gifts, and give them a lot more reason to do so. Assuming they're allowed to load an infinite amount onto their account at once, it probably means a much bigger income for BYOND, not even considering how much more they'll be spending for those in-game items.

As Aaiko mentioned, there needs to be some pretty hefty security on such systems. So some random game can't go stealing from everybody. The membership/subscription systems that are already in place could probably be applied for this, one way or another.
Then there's the issue of people making scam payments, which I have no solution for...

the only issue with this feature is if it isnt blocked for games based on tv shows, movies or any thing copyrighted then those games are making money which is illegal, because thye dont pay fees to the people who hold the copyright, so if those games can be blocked from using this feature then by all means add it.

as a fangame developer i eventualy want to expand to an original game idear and this feature would make subscriptions alot easyer to setup.

I'd like to see an item mall option. While it could be set up, I feel byond already has some things in place that would make it easier to keep track of the player's info.

To me it's like a less expensive option.

You would : Buy some type of e-currency which then can be used in any game that has the features for it.

Byond itself may get a percenttage of this profit, while the person/ persons hosting might as well. I'm not fully sure how the subscription works but it's basically the same.

For instance Player A seems some cool looking items that they can only get with credits. Let's say credits come for a rate of 200 credits for 1 USD. Player A buys 10 USD worth of credits and purchases the items they want or features they want from the game.

I'm also not sure how much work would be involved but it might also be simpler to do a different approach.

Have game specific amounts of credits.

I think the idea is that instead of having a subscription system, have a system in which you can pay for individual things in game (a powerup, etc.) with real money. I think BYONDimes used to do this?

Kind of like BYONDimes .. although I don't think you could use them in game as such but I suppose you could use them for subscriptions..

BYONDimes were mainly used to buy content such as sources of icons from hubs created by a user.

Uhh that is pretty game specific .. you can do that yourself without BYOND or the hub .. and that is the whole point of the upgrades..

So you don't rely on BYOND or the hub .. Creating a website with functions to allow subscriptions and in-game purchases is simple..

I really wish people would use MYSQL to save players and the etc this would make what you are asking for really really simple ... especially when adding the subscription to the user.

A.T.H.K wrote:

Uhh that is pretty game specific .. you can do that yourself without BYOND or the hub .. and that is the whole point of the upgrades..

So you don't rely on BYOND or the hub .. Creating a website with functions to allow subscriptions and in-game purchases is simple..
I really wish people would use MYSQL to save players and the etc this would make what you are asking for really really simple ... especially when adding the subscription to the user.

It's game specific, but that company runs various games and either way it all goes back to them btw.

I'll check out the lib section then. Thanks.

There are other demos/libs provided that prove a simpliar solution using the MYSQL lib by (Deadron ? or DanTom)

http://www.byond.com/forum/?command=top_search&text=mysql

I was in the process of downloading most of them and seeing what's what. I noticed that most of the older ones weren't commented very well but eh! Thanks. I'll most likely end up giving this one a try.