作者：Ulyana Chernyak

付费货币的理念最早出现在Xbox和Xbox Live到来的时候。比起直接使用真钱在XBLA上购买内容，微软让消费者可以用真钱去换取Xbox Live Points。

虽然用真钱交换付费货币看似没有多重要，但是其中的一些心理学原理却惹恼了硬核玩家。

首先，可能也是最大的要点便是交换付费货币是大多数情况下的一种方法：这意味着一旦你购买了付费货币或获得它，你便不能再回到之前那样使用真钱进行消费。

存在唯一一个让你能够同时使用付费货币和真钱的例子，它便是MMO游戏《Eve Online》，但其业务模式与设计对于本文来说太过复杂了。大多数开发者不允许交叉汇兑的原因便是他们不希望将钱还给消费者们。

Eve Online(from hao123)

这与赌场的情况类似，当某一方获胜时便能带来另外一个点。一旦有人花钱了，心理状态便在此发挥着功效；这将能够更轻松地说服人们继续花钱。

付费货币是双重的，首先便是提供给消费者赚钱的错觉。拥有100万美元的付费货币与拥有100万美元的真钱是不同的。但是消费者仍会因为获得货币并通过消费它获得游戏奖励而感到高兴。这种在现实世界中获得某些独特或难以找到的内容的满足感也同样适用于免费游戏中。

当你在消费付费货币时，你也是在消费真钱，但对于消费者来说这两种感觉是不同的。相比消费5美元的真钱，消费者更容易意识到消费100个金币。

开发者所喜欢的另外一点便是他们可以控制货币交换以及游戏中的内容定价。这便区分了每一款免费游戏并阻止游戏间的相互踩踏。

在开发者销售付费货币的目标用户身上使用微交易是非常受欢迎的业务战术。例如：100个金币等于1美元，开发者将把内容设定为120个金币。原因很简单，他们想要消费者能够花费比道具成本更多的钱，如此便会多出额外的货币。这也让消费者们在未来更有可能在此花钱。

就像你所看到的，付费货币是开发者的福利，但普通消费者却不可能创造较多消费，而开发者也很难向硬核玩家推广这一理念。不过存在一些方法能够帮助你缓解付费货币的这些弊端：

明确的购买：

显然你可以做出的最大决定便是允许双向交换，就像《Eve Online》那样。但这只有在游戏拥有超过免费游戏商店外的实际经济时才能发挥作用。在阅读这些内容的你们将会为带有微交易的商店选择怎样的方法。

首先你需要决定的便是货币交换率：你的付费货币的最低面额需要花费多少真钱？如此你便可以决定剩下的面额，并以它作为设定标准。在游戏发行后你便不能再提升数值，不过你可以在特定期限内进行货币和内容的促销。

另外一个要点也是一种有效的促销战术便是降价出售给购买大量付费货币的消费者。也就是如果1美元能够从你手中获得100个金币，那就允许消费者可以用5美元购得570个金币。这种捆绑折扣在其它市场中是一种有效的促销战术，并且也适用于此。

对于那些不能选择在自己的游戏中设置促销的开发者来说，他们还可以借助于许多第三方平台的帮忙。有许多例子都能够用于这种类型的促销。如果你不知道自己到底该怎么做的话，其它的第三方公司甚至会帮助你计划并决定游戏或内容的促销。

最后，为了避免在购买付费货币时感到困惑，玩家总是会先搞清楚这样的交易所需要的真钱数。在如今的世界中，我们经常会听到一些小孩为了社交游戏而刷光信用卡上的钱的故事，你肯定也不希望自己的游戏出现在相关的新闻上吧。

基于不同的使用方法，付费货币有可能变成一种邪恶的方法，所以你必须在使用前有效地衡量它对于你的游戏的利与弊。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Making Sense of Premium Currency

by Ulyana Chernyak

The Exchange Game:

The concept of premium currency first started with the arrival of the Xbox and Xbox Live. Instead of spending real money directly to buy content on XBLA, Microsoft required the consumer to essentially exchange their real money for Xbox Live Points.

While the exchange of real money for premium currency doesn’t seem that important, however there are several facts and psychological conditioning at work that annoys core gamers.

First and perhaps the biggest point is that the exchange for premium currency is one way in most cases: Meaning that once you buy the premium currency or earn it, there’s no way to convert that back to real money to spend elsewhere.

There is only one major example that lets you go back and forth with premium currency and real cash and that is the MMO Eve Online, but the business model and design are way too big and complex for us to go into in this post. The reason why most developers don’t allow for cross exchange is that they don’t want to be giving their customers back their money.

Similar to casinos, the casino prefers it when the house wins and that brings up another point. There is that psychological conditioning at work once someone starts spending money; it becomes easier to convince that person to continue spending it.

The point of premium currency is twofold, first to give the consumer a false sense of wealth. Saying that you have one million dollars is different than having one million dollars in premium currency. But the consumer still gets that thrill of owning that currency and spending it on in game bonuses. That gratification of getting something unique or hard to find works just as well in a F2P game as it does in the real world.

When you’re spending premium currency, you are technically spending real money but the perception is different for the consumer. It’s a lot easier to rationalize spending 100 gold stars as opposed to spending $5.00 of real money.

The other point and one that developers like is that they control both the currency exchange and the pricing of content in their games. This makes every F2P game separate and prevents a game from stepping on the toes of another game.

It’s a popular business tactic to make most micro transactions just above the denominations that the developers are selling premium currency for. For example: 100 gold stars equals $1, the developer will then price the content at 120 gold stars. The reason is simple, they want the consumer to spend more than what the item they want costs so they’ll have currency left over. This makes it more likely that they’ll spend money in the future.

As you can see, premium currency is a boon for developers but not so much for the general consumer and this makes it hard to sell the concept to core gamers. But there are a few steps you can take to mitigate the negatives of premium currency.

Clear Purchases:

Obviously the big decision you can make is to allow for two-way exchanges like in Eve Online. But this can only work if the game has an actual economy beyond just a F2P store. Which chances are most of you reading this are going to be aiming just for a storefront with micro transactions.

First thing you need to decide on is a currency exchange rate: How much does the lowest denomination of your premium currency will cost for real money? From there you can then decide what the rest of your denominations will be while keeping to this standard. While you can’t raise the value after release, you can of course have sales where buying currency or the content can be cheaper for a set period of time.

Another point and a good sales tactic is to lower the cost of buying bulk premium currency. If $1 gets you 100 gold stars then $5 will get you 570 gold stars. This kind of bulk discount is a useful sales tactic seen in other markets and can be used here.

For developers who don’t have options for setting up sales in their game, there are many third party platforms that can assist you in that regard. Some examples would be being able to set the type of sale, frequency and amount. Other third party companies may even help you with planning and having sales for your game or content if you are not sure how to do that on your own.

Lastly, to avoid confusion when buying or spending premium currency, the player should always be made aware of the real money cost to that transaction. In today’s world where we are hearing stories of kids running up credit cards on social games to the shock of their parents, you do not want your game to be mentioned on the news.

Premium currency depending on who you talk to can be a necessary evil or just evil and it’s important to weigh the pros and cons of how it will work for your game.(source:gamasutra)