How to handle bought goods

[Sinzygy]

This is somewhat of a hybrid topic as it deals with revenue and game mechanics.

The recent discussion about donating/paying/ads/etc. started to make me think about how to actually handle bought items.
I'd have taken the approach of selling a special kind of currency. For example next to the regular copper/silver money there is also the currency of gold/diamonds which can be bought through real-currency.
Let's say there are some special items and special privileges that can only be bought through diamonds.

So we got the "standard" currency:
Copper
Silver (100 Copper)
Gold (100 Silver, 10000 Copper)

And the payed currency
Diamond

Now here are some questions I've been thinking about:
- Can a player buy diamonds for... 100 Gold apiece? Or are they only for paying users?
- Can diamonds be stolen?
    - if yes, what would the legal situation be for the game-owner?
    - Can the game owner be charged with theft/helping in the process of theft?
- Should there be a limit of available diamonds?
    - per day?
    - per week?
    - just a fixed amount in the whole game?

yeah, those are some of the questions I'm not really sure about and I'd like to hear your input/views on this topic

[bullarky]

Can the diamond currency be converted to "regular" currency (i.e. gold)? If so, what is the ratio?

As for whether or not "regular" currency should be able to be converted to diamonds, I guess it would depend on how stable your economy is (obviously you don't want to implement such a feature only to have your economy crash and diamonds be worthless).

Hmm... a good idea to ponder...

[dvd871]

If you allow players to save up say gold (a non-donating currency) and buy diamonds (your credits or paid donation currency)  then why would players want to donate?  They would just save gold and get the same perks   Now you could have a random event that happens to drop a diamond, but make it rare.  That would allow some freebies to donator only services and that might add incentive to make a donation after a player has been tempted.

[RangerSheck]

In Puzzle Pirates there is a standard currency, Pieces of Eight (POE) and an option to purchase the other currency, gold doubloons, for real world cash (depending on the server you use - some servers are straight up monthly subscriptions). Certain purchases require doubloons. The pillaging and parlor games only pay out in POE. If you want to buy something from another player, typically you will have to pay the asking price in POE, and a small "tax" in doubloons (I believe it gets eaten by the server and is not passed on to the seller). Some parts of the game require "badges" which are bought in doubloons.

There is an "exchange" where you can buy or sell doubloons with POE - usually the exchange rate is several hundred POE to one doubloon. I think $3 USD will get you 12 doubloons. So while some people actually do save up POE and buy doubloons at the exchange, and never spend a cent in game, other people (like me, when I played it) find it easier to spend a couple bucks every once in a while to get some doubloons.

The interesting bit is that the exchange is a player-driven economy. A doubloon, once spent, is gone forever. Combine this fact with the fact that a doubloon can only enter the game by a player spending real world cash, and I think it's actually a pretty good model. It let's broke players with lots of free time trade POE for doubloons with players with little free time who have more spending money. And it somewhat ensures people will always be spending money on the game (if people stop buying doubloons, their market value in POE would skyrocket, and someone would eventually buy some doubloons to take advantage).

I plan to implement something similar someday in PoA, but I'm a still a ways off.

[Sinzygy]

Can the diamond currency be converted to "regular" currency (i.e. gold)? If so, what is the ratio?

I would've said yes, but certainly not at the buying-ratio. I know, it sounds weird and unrealistic, but I plan on making gold really act as a way of 10000 units of regular money. But it's probably best if diamonds cannot be sold for regular currency.

If you allow players to save up say gold (a non-donating currency) and buy diamonds (your credits or paid donation currency)  then why would players want to donate?  They would just save gold and get the same perks   Now you could have a random event that happens to drop a diamond, but make it rare.  That would allow some freebies to donator only services and that might add incentive to make a donation after a player has been tempted.

Well I plan on making diamonds available at a very hight price. So a player needs to save a lot and therefore gets a disadvantage in the game itself which probably cannot be recovered by the diamond-bought goods. Diamonds will only be available to players with a lot of money.
The freebie idea is very nice. I'll probably go and implement that as well. I was also thinking rewarding diamonds for certain actions, like reporting bugs, mistakes, spammer or helping out the game itself by translating, promoting, etc.
I guess promoting the game will surely give the players some diamonds. It's probably the easiest way for non-payers to earn diamonds, but at the same time the game profits from it more.

Regarding RangerShecks posts:
I think as long as Doubloons are needed for certain features and the POE are not available in ridiculous abundance, then some players will eventually pay, or stop playing. That is of course always the risk with such a system.