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TIGSource ForumsDeveloperTechnical (Moderator: ThemsAllTook)Virtual Currency Platform
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HydraliskD
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« on: March 13, 2014, 08:39:19 AM »

Hi Guys! I need your help. We developing our indie project and we faced with a task "How build our Virtual economy with own in-game currency"? We want create a really "full-circle" system with money transfer, player-to-player trade, credit system and so on. Its not so simple as it looks like at first) So have you experience in this question? Maybe someone faced this trouble? First of all we want to try do it by our own efforts - is it just a time wasting? Thanks!      
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soryy708
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« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2014, 09:39:11 AM »

Can you be more specific?
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Eigen
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« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2014, 10:34:07 AM »

If you have to ask you shouldn't be doing it. There are so many catches, pitfalls and balancing involved even Blizzard's got it wrong in certain aspects.
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Columbo
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« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2014, 11:08:09 AM »

Hi Guys! I need your help. We developing our indie project and we faced with a task "How build our Virtual economy with own in-game currency"? We want create a really "full-circle" system with money transfer, player-to-player trade, credit system and so on. Its not so simple as it looks like at first) So have you experience in this question? Maybe someone faced this trouble? First of all we want to try do it by our own efforts - is it just a time wasting? Thanks!      

Are you letting people take money out of the system? If so, forget about doing this as an indie thing, there are so many pitfalls to do with taxation and money laundering that you would definitely be wasting your time.
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HydraliskD
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« Reply #4 on: March 14, 2014, 03:16:28 AM »

Thanks for answers! Yes, player must have ability to output their money from the system. More specific:

- user input money, buy in-game currency
- buy some items
- transfer money to another player (trading operations)
- credit systems - one player could land currency to smb for fee and earn from it
- convert back in-game currency to real cash and drop it to e-wallet, bank card etc.

Hot questions:

1. Price and rates changing - its logically to connect cash rates (USD, EUR etc) to cost of in-game currency.
2. Storing - where store information about balance and operation: just on the game-server, or out of the system? - Because it could be awesome to have ability to transfer in-game money offline (without visiting the game), I think its possible by creating e-wallet which could be integrated with Game and implemented it in payment system like PayPal - Player have his own GAME-WALLET.
3. Security question
4. Support question

Thanks a lot!)  
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soryy708
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« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2014, 03:42:19 AM »

Thanks for answers! Yes, player must have ability to output their money from the system. More specific:

- user input money, buy in-game currency
- buy some items
- transfer money to another player (trading operations)
- credit systems - one player could land currency to smb for fee and earn from it
- convert back in-game currency to real cash and drop it to e-wallet, bank card etc.

Hot questions:

1. Price and rates changing - its logically to connect cash rates (USD, EUR etc) to cost of in-game currency.
2. Storing - where store information about balance and operation: just on the game-server, or out of the system? - Because it could be awesome to have ability to transfer in-game money offline (without visiting the game), I think its possible by creating e-wallet which could be integrated with Game and implemented it in payment system like PayPal - Player have his own GAME-WALLET.
3. Security question
4. Support question

Thanks a lot!)  
What about players from a different country? Or, frequent travelers?
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BorisTheBrave
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« Reply #6 on: March 15, 2014, 04:56:31 AM »

Thanks for answers! Yes, player must have ability to output their money from the system.
You cannot do this. Money laundering laws prohibit you unless you follow stringent requirements, which you won't want to subject your users to. Handling wallets yourself has another raft of rules about security and capitalization. Unless you can convince a bank to partner with you, you'll need to be engaging a full time lawyer to handle it. So, it's really not an option for indie developers.
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soryy708
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« Reply #7 on: March 15, 2014, 11:18:44 AM »

Thanks for answers! Yes, player must have ability to output their money from the system.
You cannot do this. Money laundering laws prohibit you unless you follow stringent requirements, which you won't want to subject your users to. Handling wallets yourself has another raft of rules about security and capitalization. Unless you can convince a bank to partner with you, you'll need to be engaging a full time lawyer to handle it. So, it's really not an option for indie developers.
Makes sense. If he messes something up, then it has a potential to crash the economy of a whole country (maybe even multiple).
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oodavid
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« Reply #8 on: March 15, 2014, 01:32:35 PM »

I'd say keep it super simple and it could be done.

* Allow users to buy virtual currency.
* They can purchase items from each other
* ...a percentage cut is taken for every transaction, remove it from circulation.
* All transactions and wallets are kept on a remote server, keep the logic fully in your control.

But yeah, don't let people take money out, that's just crazy territory.

You could build the entire system APART FROM the real-world moneys and then test it with minimal risk: wallets, transactions etc. by monitoring how it is used you should be able to figure out the price-point to start earning some mad $$.

If it were me, I'd release it as I've described and be very up front about it "we WILL make you pay for virtual credits in due course, but as our valued early adopters we need to see how it is used blah blah blah"
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HydraliskD
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« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2014, 01:07:46 AM »

Thanks guys! You really helped me a lot. I confronted this task first time so all informtaion is very useful because feel myself newbie). If you have some additional thoughts about subj - please share with me!)
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Chromanoid
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« Reply #10 on: March 19, 2014, 01:30:37 AM »

The Linden Lab guys had hard times in courtrooms to defend their interests and platform (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bragg_v._Linden_Lab).

Maybe you can use Bitcoins to create a system where you are not really involved.

You might want to search for RMT platforms. I guess RMT (real money transaction) is the right term for you.

As others stated already, making a RMT platform is not a matter of technology but laws and bureaucracy. You should have at least one specialized lawyer on your team who defends your endeavor in court... Nevertheless many personal legal risks remain.
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HydraliskD
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« Reply #11 on: March 27, 2014, 06:04:28 AM »

So, guys. We still have no particular result(. I unequivocally reject the idea develop this by ourselves, because it really would be nothing more than time and money wasting. I see only one simple way - implement ready system. Guys, who can just advice agregating platform for money input-output and circulation inside the game?

Thanks for your answers!

For clarity, I need smt like that but in e-money direction)

http://www.crytek.com/news/crytek-announces-its-cryengine-as-a-service-program-for-990-usd-per-month

http://www.joystiq.com/2014/03/19/unreal-engine-4-available-for-all-in-new-subscription-model/
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Chromanoid
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« Reply #12 on: March 27, 2014, 12:19:02 PM »

Maybe you can ask these guys:
https://developers.betable.com/ (beware the türbö capitalists Hand Money Right)
I think these guys once did RMT:
http://www.playspan.com/

As I said before, I think Bitcoins might be a good way to transfer the risks to the users Giggle. AFAIK you can use multiple payers and payees for one transaction.
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HydraliskD
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« Reply #13 on: April 15, 2014, 12:59:34 AM »

Ok, guys. Do you have somethink interesting for me about this stuff? I am deep in coding and endless meetings... I think time is running faster and faster... my brain gonna burn. But I still thinking about e-money and dont stop to shake a tree to find explanatory answer)
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gnat
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« Reply #14 on: April 20, 2014, 01:34:52 AM »

If you want to totally avoid all of the gotchas involved in integrating payment solutions yourself, you can use a service like Super Rewards (which aggregates many based on geography, negotiates for new payment options, handles fraud, etc.) All you'd need to do then is set up your web server to accept POST messages to credit your users.

Just jump your User to a web browser when they want to buy virtual currency.

Transparency: I'm currently a software engineer at SR in charge of payment solution integrations. Tell them gnat sent you. Wink

A word on Bitcoin: We integrated BTC recently, and although I believe virtual currency is the future, restricting yourself only to Bitcoin will put you out of business... not enough people use it yet.
« Last Edit: April 20, 2014, 01:43:55 AM by gnat » Logged

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Chromanoid
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« Reply #15 on: April 21, 2014, 10:00:09 AM »

Cool service! Do you do two-way transactions (platform to user / user to platform)?
« Last Edit: April 21, 2014, 10:05:34 AM by Chromanoid » Logged
gnat
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« Reply #16 on: April 21, 2014, 12:25:47 PM »

Currently it's only one-way: Users paying real money to convert into whatever virtual currency you have created inside your game.

Many payment solutions do not easily support transactions in the opposite direction, such as mobile phones.
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Chromanoid
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« Reply #17 on: April 21, 2014, 01:02:35 PM »

Yeah, this exactly is the problem of the OP... They want a payout option for their users. This is why I proposed BTC. Do you know a provider that allows payouts for end users?
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gnat
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« Reply #18 on: April 21, 2014, 01:54:45 PM »

You could limit payouts only to certain payment systems which support it, such as Paypal, Google Wallet, Bitcoin.

Not sure if you'd want payments happening automatically unless you know exactly what you're doing. That'd be a big target of exploitation. Most of these circular systems, such as in Second Life, approve each payout manually anyway.
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jbadams
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« Reply #19 on: April 23, 2014, 05:04:22 AM »

I don't know if it would meet your needs, but I just saw a topic at GDNet about a new service called CasualKit that might be worth checking out.
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