Introduce micro payments into gaming, adaptively. So let me not decide to spend 4.99, 10.99, or 19.99, every week or so, (which i have spent on Tribez in the last few months) but instead, let me adaptively get adicted to spending money, so that I never feel there is a choice barrier. So if choosing to move and choosing to spend money, like maybe .ooooo1 cents at a time, were part of the same gesture, then you would have me, Old Scratch.-- JesusHChrist, Mar 09 2013 Gold farming. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 12 2013] Before you spend that first fraction of a cent, wouldn't you have to give your credit card details/paypal/prepaid account ID/whatever?
If so, then that's the real barrier. The actual cost is almost irrelevant for small values. If not - well that would be great. How does that work?-- Loris, Mar 11 2013 These new games have optimized the addictive quality of video gaming and they put the opportunity to buy in at just the right times. I guess what I am talking about has already been done in a way, in that you are always accumulating micro cash, at first without paying actual cash, but most of the games then give you a big separate time to purchase stuff, in between "innings", so that your shop time is compartmentalized. I was just thinking that they should have the spending of micro cash be a part of the game so that each gesture contains some kind of choice about how much to spend, however small. I think the thing is that the model is based on impulse buying, where you are letting pent up emotional stuff break through a duck tapey dam that addictive personalities (people with disabilities) Putin place to control behavior and then the emotional breakthrough becomes a habit and the economic model is basically taxing addictive personalities. But maybe a gentler approach where you are training the player to spen within reason with each stroke would be more sustainable.-- JesusHChrist, Mar 11 2013 I thought a First Person Shooter with a very low barrier to entry - ie a cheap initial purchase price - would be a good way to go. The catch is that the game comes with a finite number of lives. However, you can topup with 10 extra lives for $2 or whatever. Instead of paying $80 to buy the game pay $10 but that is eventually made up by reloading lives.-- AusCan531, Mar 11 2013 Facebook Credits?-- marklar, Mar 12 2013 The problem with video game payments is that you never get paid. The prospect of getting paid is what squeezes extra dopamine out of the gamblers brain. The video game should have the prospect of getting a huge chunk of money - not the ingame crap money but money useful for the sort of thing one needs money to buy in these games. (sidebar: it seems like many of these game apps have two tiers of money: ingame which is coins you find etc, and real $ for the good stuff).
Then you would have the extra power of gambling addiction getting people to spend. But - its not gambling because the "real" money cannot come out of the game!-- bungston, Mar 12 2013 //The problem with video game payments is that you never get paid//
Unless you are a gold farmer [link]-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Mar 12 2013 random, halfbakery