Add an item to the ingame money store that can be traded and converted to planetary fuel

Supply and demand. The price will rise until equilibrium is met

1 Like

Since guilds and shared planets can basically do this unofficially already, until that is changed, this just opens the market to people outside of guilds and creates a more transparent market via BUTT.

As long as $$ -> coin works on the guild level, maybe it should also work for gleam club credit.

Personally I hate P2W but if it exists already it should be the best possible form of P2W–as open and regulated as possible.

Since not everyone knows about BUTT though, this market imo needs to be global and built into the game. No comment on including other items.

2 Likes

Ok so people are missing my point but I think I have a solution anyway.

Say in September, 10 people buy world tickets and sell them on stands. Then in October 7 people buy world tickets to sell them. That means there will be a price war and three sovereigns will get closed.

Around 50% of the time this will happen presumably, since life approximates sine waves.

The only way around this would be some sort of hedged economy. If there aren’t enough world tickets for sale this month, anyone whose world is in danger of closing can buy a ticket for double last month’s price. Then when people want to sell them on the market they have to first sell to wonderstruck for that same price until the deficit is fixed.

I think I see your point. If the market is not fluid enough then someone who needs a ticket might not be able to find one.

Generally the way a market works is that there are always a number of slightly overpriced world tickets hanging out, and a number of slightly underpriced willing buyers waiting for a good deal. So when someone is in urgent need of a ticket, they get a slightly overpriced one. And when someone is in urgent need of coin, they buy a ticket and offer a pretty good deal.

I think after an initial rocky period, a number of sovereigns that are 100% dependent on coin-ticket transactions will hedge themselves by buying extra in storage.

3 Likes

if this ever happens i will quit boundless i disagree when it comes to shark card type ways of making ingame $ and by a player selling fuel for in game $ it would act as a shark card of sorts

4 Likes

How do you feel about this

1 Like

i would help a guild get / keep a planet but i would not want nor would i take ingame money or items for helping

2 Likes

Not too long ago someone (I won’t mention names) attempted to sell IRL artwork for some in-game forged hammers, mats, etc. This idea was IMMEDIATELY shot down for being in violation of eula.
How exactly is trading world fuel, purchased with IRL money, for items in game not exactly the same scenario?

6 Likes

because the IRL money for fuel goes first to WS, and not in your example (artwork) to the user.

2 Likes

That doesn’t legitimize the transaction… it just confuses it.

Money laundering

Money laundering is the illegal process of concealing the origins of money obtained illegally by passing it through a complex sequence of banking transfers or commercial transactions. The overall scheme of this process returns the “clean” money to the launderer in an obscure and indirect way.

I mean, I guess yeah, Wonderstruck gets their share in this instance, but it still seems against the rules to trade items in game for money

1 Like

This ignores the ability of those three world owners to go to the shop and pay for them with cash, of course.

That was an out of game transaction, ‘selling’ in game items for real world materials. Cash or not it’s the same.

If the devs offer an item in a cash shop that can be traded or sold in game, both transactions are occurring within the game’s internal ecosystem, and under dev control. There are no third parties and no requirement for value/items to change hands in the real world.

This is a well established model, people mention a few big MMOs around here but I’ve seen games where cash shop items are tradeable for many years, since my kids were first taking interest in MMOs.

Nothing leaves the game ecosystem, there’s no comparison to money laundering at all :smirk:

1 Like

That’s a good point. I mean, if they approve it, have at it. It just seems sleazy. Like, can I offer to pay for someone’s gleam club time in exchange for hopper cores? Sure maybe, technically but damn. Are we gonna have gold farmers next too? It’s literally p2w, at the very least.

I had to look up the shark cards reference but yep, it’s almost exactly this.

The only difference is that the market (players) would decide the in-game value rather than the developers fixing it at a set amount of coins.

It’s also already going to happen. Making it a tradeable item instead of a code would change the market in a couple of primary ways:

  • You could make a safe/reliable transaction with someone you don’t know
  • The market would be transparent and open

Adding the item to the current system (leaving sony/steam out of it) could be done with a new vendor or exchange item, where you submitted your code (purchased at shop.playboundless.com as they are now) for the item.

1 Like

The more I think about it the more I think it’s not worth the dev time.

This feature requires (imo):

  • Global marketplace for trading this item (maybe not even shop stands since it costs server processing)
  • Bot detection to prevent some abuses I won’t detail here
  • Dev team getting together to also debate whether it’s worth it etc.

The feature offers the following benefits:

  • Some small fraction of people who currently are not buying private planets will cause the purchase of private planets. I believe this number of people is small, and that the current glut of planets may even reduce, because planets are so share-able, hence I do not foresee large increase of revenue.
  • Of the revenue increase, some unknown fraction becomes actual profit (due to server costs).
  • Potentially more people buy the game with this as a feature… but could also go the other way.

If the item includes gleam club, then you can add a similarly small fraction of players willing to pay coin for emojis/colored text, or easily gift each other gleam club.

IMO there are about 1045 other things which devs should do instead. If you’ll forgive me writing them here:

  • More cosmetic items which are $-only (not cubit)
  • Other $ transactions which have no lootbox/in-game advantage/P2W elements
  • Highly requested QoL features to keep people playing (and funding gleam club)
  • Highly requested new features to keep people playing (and funding gleam club) and attracting new players
  • Server-side improvements to reduce server costs and improve things like player cap, more value per customer $ for private planets
3 Likes

Help me understand why this is necessary?

If you have an in-game item to sell, why can’t you put it in a shop stand?

Discussing possible exploits of a theoretical system does help to create a better system. As long as it’s something that isn’t exploitable in the current game…

Of course. As with any new system or feature.

Absolutely. This would move me from “maybe some time in the future” to “ready to buy”.

This thread has piqued my interest. If it wasn’t against TOS I would be making an offer right now. How much coin do you want for 24 months worth of planet fuel?

Profit margins aside (none of our business) this would stir a spike in revenue. And to some extent it would sustain.

3 Likes

The reason I believe the marketplace should be global is because one of the major benefits of this feature is making an open transparent marketplace and not everyone uses BUTT. So it’s most fair for buyers and sellers to easily see all prices in-game especially since real world money is involved.

I see it as exploitable in the current game because indirect trades can already occur… this item would somewhat facilitate these trades but also make it more open and introduce fair market to it. I am 100% willing to discuss what I think might happen in private conversation with a dev but rather not say here, since enforcement of the rules is slower than breaking the rules.

For me personally I wouldn’t pay any coin or $ for a private planet… it’s not my thing but I see how it can be attractive to others.

I think in terms of the revenue benefit, most of it would be achieved just by saying “According to the TOS you are allowed to make these trades.” Making a legit item just adds to transparency, open market, and lets you do a trustable trade. Marginal benefits.

1 Like

This is true of everything, IMO. A universal in game market would smooth out the economy. For better, or for worse :thinking:

This is totally true, it will happen. It will have to be sort of sketchy since there’s no mechanism for it, and no recourse for either party in a scam. Or even just an honest misunderstanding. There’s now an in game item that is essentially transferable and has a cost in hard currency.

Adding tools to manage it is, in the end, likely to be better for everyone.

I’m in the middle here. Disposable dollars come and go. I’d be super happy to pay for a planet in game coins. Especially if I could stockpile time. As it stands I couldn’t imagine making my home on a rented world.

I definitely agree here. I’d venture to say that trustable trades would be more than a marginal benefit though.

2 Likes