A Currency-Based System Proposal

It's been a productive couple days so far, and I've managed to draft out localization notes, propose an animation system, review a proposal for our score and ranking system, and take care of a few other odds and ends. Mew is also hard at work assisting me, as you can see. While he technically reduces my typing capability, his keen insights on currency exchange arbitrage are invaluable.

The main win right now is that I've made a proposal for a Currency-Based system. Ironically, I really hope this proposal is defeated because I'd really like for us to eliminate currencies from the game altogether. They just feel... inappropriate for our setting.

Anyway, I don't have much time for real blogging so here's another copy and paste. This time it's a little tidbit on managing prices for hard currencies. Maybe you'll find it interesting... Who knows!

The following is reprinted with permission, © Fixer Studios 2013

Hard Currency Cost

We will start with the assumption that an average purchase is $5, and that Hard Currency is worth one cent. This allows us to give away a couple for in return for an action that is only worth a couple cents (watch a video ad, answer a survey, etc). From there, we want to ensure that there is a low priced SKU that is a fairly “poor deal” and that each other SKU increases in value. However, once players commit to spending $10 or $20 we know they’re a big spender... so we don’t want an exponential bonus because it can cannibalize long-term sales. For instance, imagine that soda pop was weightless, never spilled and never went flat. Suddenly, selling people 64 fl. oz. Double Big Gulp (more than 5 cans) for $1.69 would be a bad idea because nobody would ever buy $1 cans again. Since hard currency is like magic, magical soda... we need to watch that shit. That's why the best deal is 44% off instead of 90% off.

SKU	Hard Currency	USD	Per Dollar	Price Each
XS	150	$1.99	75	0.0133
S	500	$4.99	100	0.0100
M	1150	$9.99	115	0.0087
L	2500	$19.99	125	0.0080
XL	6500	$49.99	130	0.0077
XXL	13500	$99.99	135	0.0074

Included FYI only, we have an official spreadsheet for current data

This table provides for a very smooth curve along the most common price points. Overall, it’s quite similar to the values in the highly successful game Clash of Clans, but features a $2 SKU to encourage first-time purchases (“conversion”), plus in comparison the values at $10 and $99 are a bit depressed for a smoother curve.