Money Transactions in WoW and NCsoft
Two giants in the MMO world have taken steps toward sanctioning the flow of U.S. dollars into their games. First, Blizzard Entertainment is currently hosting in World of Warcraft an Arena-based series of global tournaments hosted on special servers. In this Arena Tournament, players pay $20 to participate and in return get “to instantly create level-70 [the maximum level attainable] characters with epic equipment” and unlimited gold. These newly-created characters will be unable to explore or transfer to regular WoW realms that that host the vast majority of players. Thus, these new level 70 avatars are purely a limited creation and presumably expire with the end of the tournament in October. Nonetheless, the tournament is significant as it marks the first time Blizzard has embraced a money-for-advancement exchange. What is interesting is how Blizzard spins this project in their press release:
The tournaments will take place on special realms that allow competitors to instantly create level-70 characters with epic equipment, placing the focus on tactics and execution rather than normal adventuring.
“eSports is one of the most exciting facets of online gaming today,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re pleased to expand World of Warcraft’s tournament options for players who want to focus mainly on the competitive aspect of the game.” (emphasis added)
“NCsoft’s goal is to bring more and more people into the online gaming market, and part of achieving that goal is to continue to diversify how customers can pay and play,” said Chris Chung, NCsoft North America’s president. “This system will offer our customers much greater flexibility and convenience in paying for content. Micro-transactions are a growing part of the online gaming industry and NCcoin will allow us to support micro-transaction based games efficiently, allowing developers and players to quickly enjoy the benefits of those systems. We will soon be rolling out more contents that leverage the flexibility of NCcoin.” (emphasis added)
Update 4/23/08: NCsoft has announced that the NCcoin system will not be incorporated into current games, such as Guild Wars. As reported on Massively:
NCcoin will not be retrofitted in games that have business models that do not work with a micro-transaction system. We will, however, work to have NCcoin incorporated in as many of our games as possible. What role NCcoin will play in our future console offerings is yet to be determined.