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>I despise fake currency created to form a disconnect between the real-world costs of items and their "in-game" price. That's the entire point; it's a psycholo

>I despise fake currency created to form a disconnect between the real-world costs of items and their "in-game" price. That's the entire point; it's a psychological hack. It's the same idea as gambling chips at a casino. If they force you to purchase "coins" in bulk, then you are much more likely to spend them freely once you have them than you would with actual cash, as the value is too abstract. They will also set the prices in such a way that you just need to buy one more "coin pack" even though you only need a few individual coins to get what you want.

gdulli 10y ago
Many casino games don't work well with cash. You'd use plastic or ceramic chips even if you were playing at home against friends. Common coins have too little value, larger coins get very heavy and loud in bulk. And paper money doesn't work well. You can't toss it to the center of the table as easily as chips, it's harder to count a stack of dollars, paper money would tear when handled so heavily, etc. There are very practical reasons to use chips instead of cash in a casino. Slot machines, which don't have those considerations, can be played with your choice of cash or cards that can have value loaded onto them, as of the last time I checked.
- ballenf 10y ago
  Very true, but it sure is a lot easier to toss a "chip" tip to your dealer or waitress than cash. Or place a long shot bet that you don't expect to win. And I mean psychologically less painful, not logistically even though it is both. You have the added pain of turning chips back into dollars, so your mind starts to play tricks on you making parting with the chips ever so easier than parting with cash. You discount for the hassle of getting back to cash. In addition you get chips from any and every dealer in the casino. You get cash from one of a couple cashiers placed very inconveniently around the periphery where there are often lines or uncertainty about which windows are open. Just a touch of uncertainty. Virtual game currencies are, amazingly, even worse. It is incredibly painful and difficult to walk away from them since you lose all that fake "value" you've built up or bought.
problems 10y ago
Does it ever work though? First thing I do is do the math on what each individual item I'm interested in costs in dollars based on the price of both the most and least expensive coin pack or whatever.
- graedus 10y ago
  > First thing I do is do the math Me too, but I guarantee we're outliers. You probably look at your credit card statements sometimes too :) They could easily choose to make the exchange rate easy (at least in e.g. USD), or even better, forego the fake currency system entirely and allow transactions in the user's local currency. Instead they erect multiple layers of obfuscation to keep you from thinking about the idea that you're actually spending real money. Something tells me they spend the resources on this system because it results in increased net profits.
  - problems 10y ago
    I'm not so sure - I think it's more for other reasons, I wouldn't necessarily attribute it to something so complicated when there's a few quite less complicated good reasons I can see for it too - like lowering transaction fees by performing less transactions (if I buy a big pack of tokens, I only make 1 purchase, rather than doing a ton of small transactions which will kill you on fees from many payment gateways) - or easing the burden on customer support to explain why they can't refund a partially spent balance. When I buy a pack of tokens rather than depositing USD or similar into an account, I'm more likely to spend all of those tokens. I'm also not likely to say "hey, I demand you give me my remaining balance back" after buying a single cheap item. It also makes giving rewards easy and makes sure that money will be spent in the same place. Some free to play games, World of Tanks for example have larger things that are sold both in gold and in USD - because they make it possible for people to earn gold in game through multiplayer competitions but want it to be easy for someone who just wants premium time to buy it with cash.
    - graedus 10y ago
      > When I buy a pack of tokens rather than depositing USD or similar into an account, I'm more likely to spend all of those tokens. In my experience, it's exactly the opposite, since packs of points/tokens are not typically divisible by the price of common purchases. For example, you might have the option to buy 500, 1500, or 3000 points; items then cost something like 740 or 800 or 1600 points. To spend your last point/token you almost certainly have to buy more than you originally intended.
Dylan16807 10y ago
Casino chips are 1:1 and refundable, I'm not sure that works the same way.
linkregister 10y ago
I've never been to a casino where I can't use cash to get chips for that hand's stake at any dealer's table. The friction of cashing out has always been low as well by going to the cash-out points by each exit.

gdulli 10y ago

Many casino games don't work well with cash. You'd use plastic or ceramic chips even if you were playing at home against friends. Common coins have too little value, larger coins get very heavy and loud in bulk. And paper money doesn't work well. You can't toss it to the center of the table as easily as chips, it's harder to count a stack of dollars, paper money would tear when handled so heavily, etc. There are very practical reasons to use chips instead of cash in a casino. Slot machines, which don't have those considerations, can be played with your choice of cash or cards that can have value loaded onto them, as of the last time I checked.

ballenf 10y ago
Very true, but it sure is a lot easier to toss a "chip" tip to your dealer or waitress than cash. Or place a long shot bet that you don't expect to win. And I mean psychologically less painful, not logistically even though it is both. You have the added pain of turning chips back into dollars, so your mind starts to play tricks on you making parting with the chips ever so easier than parting with cash. You discount for the hassle of getting back to cash. In addition you get chips from any and every dealer in the casino. You get cash from one of a couple cashiers placed very inconveniently around the periphery where there are often lines or uncertainty about which windows are open. Just a touch of uncertainty. Virtual game currencies are, amazingly, even worse. It is incredibly painful and difficult to walk away from them since you lose all that fake "value" you've built up or bought.

problems 10y ago

Does it ever work though? First thing I do is do the math on what each individual item I'm interested in costs in dollars based on the price of both the most and least expensive coin pack or whatever.

graedus 10y ago
> First thing I do is do the math Me too, but I guarantee we're outliers. You probably look at your credit card statements sometimes too :) They could easily choose to make the exchange rate easy (at least in e.g. USD), or even better, forego the fake currency system entirely and allow transactions in the user's local currency. Instead they erect multiple layers of obfuscation to keep you from thinking about the idea that you're actually spending real money. Something tells me they spend the resources on this system because it results in increased net profits.
- problems 10y ago
  I'm not so sure - I think it's more for other reasons, I wouldn't necessarily attribute it to something so complicated when there's a few quite less complicated good reasons I can see for it too - like lowering transaction fees by performing less transactions (if I buy a big pack of tokens, I only make 1 purchase, rather than doing a ton of small transactions which will kill you on fees from many payment gateways) - or easing the burden on customer support to explain why they can't refund a partially spent balance. When I buy a pack of tokens rather than depositing USD or similar into an account, I'm more likely to spend all of those tokens. I'm also not likely to say "hey, I demand you give me my remaining balance back" after buying a single cheap item. It also makes giving rewards easy and makes sure that money will be spent in the same place. Some free to play games, World of Tanks for example have larger things that are sold both in gold and in USD - because they make it possible for people to earn gold in game through multiplayer competitions but want it to be easy for someone who just wants premium time to buy it with cash.
  - graedus 10y ago
    > When I buy a pack of tokens rather than depositing USD or similar into an account, I'm more likely to spend all of those tokens. In my experience, it's exactly the opposite, since packs of points/tokens are not typically divisible by the price of common purchases. For example, you might have the option to buy 500, 1500, or 3000 points; items then cost something like 740 or 800 or 1600 points. To spend your last point/token you almost certainly have to buy more than you originally intended.

Dylan16807 10y ago

Casino chips are 1:1 and refundable, I'm not sure that works the same way.

linkregister 10y ago

I've never been to a casino where I can't use cash to get chips for that hand's stake at any dealer's table. The friction of cashing out has always been low as well by going to the cash-out points by each exit.