article from Ember Sword
In MMO games, mining gold by killing mobs and selling all sorts of loot is often one of the main goals. Because the more gold you have, the better items you can buy from other players.
And therefore, in most cases, the amount of gold is an indicator of your strength.
Given this, and the great prestige that we, gamers, attribute to digital items in general, it is not surprising that people are trying to automate the process of mining gold.
So: "Goldpharm"
Goldpharm, the same routine gold mining process that is often delegated to bots. A bot is a program that plays for you, farms mobs, collects resources and items that can be sold to other players.
After a few weeks of the bot working in 24 / 7 mode, you will have more gold than most people earn in a month (or even a year). At this rate, you very quickly get everything you want in the game. And what do you do with the remaining gold?
That's right, you start selling it to other players.
And the gold industry is huge. Due to the fact that companies working in this direction do not like to disclose their results and turnovers, it is difficult to collect industry-wide data on the size of the industry itself, but already in the 2006 year (13 years ago), it was estimated that about 900 million dollars were spent on in-game gold in video games.
Since then, the gaming industry has increased its revenue 5-6 times. which means that in the gold sales industry, turnover could reach 5-6 billion dollars in the 2019 year if it followed the growth of the industry.
Needless to say, selling gold is a real problem in the gaming industry:
- Developers cannot monetize demand for gold;
- Black markets, where gold is traded, are often unsafe and filled with fraudsters, and players who don’t fall for them get an unfair advantage in the game, more importantly;
- During the generation of a huge amount of gold and pumping it into the economy with bots, gold depreciates greatly, which subsequently leads to a decrease in the value of gold that honest players earn.
How did the gaming industry respond to these problems?
In the early days, game developers tried to ban accounts that were found to use bot software, but it was expensive and time consuming because the bot communities were constantly upgrading their software, making it smarter to make it harder to detect bots.
As a result, the game developers decided to change the game model itself.
For the popular MMORPG "Runescape", "World of Warcraft" and "EVE Online" the answer was the possibility for players to pay Fiat for the purchase of Bond (Runescape) or Tokens (WoW), which extended the subscription of the game for a month. Which you can then sell to other players directly in the game for gold.
This practice quickly became the industry standard. And for good reason, since both these decisions had a tremendous effect as soon as they were presented.
People who want to buy gold no longer need to go to the black markets. Instead, they can safely and securely buy Bond or Token directly from the developers, and then resell them to other players.
In Runescape, according to the developers, this has reduced the profits of farmer companies by 80% in a matter of days.
Runescape bonds and WoW tokens serve two purposes:
- This allows players to buy a monthly subscription to the game using in-game gold, which means that players who do not have fiat funds for this can play the game at the expense of mined gold;
- This makes bots less profitable, providing better gameplay for everyone and reducing the number of unsafe black markets.
But one problem still remains; These solutions legitimize the pay-to-win system.
Wealthy people can buy Bonds and Tokens for Fiat and sell them for game gold, which can later be spent on acquiring the same game items in seconds, whereas an ordinary player takes hundreds of hours to do it.
These systems were great when they started to implement 5 years ago, but with the advent of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency tokens, it immediately became clear that there was an even better solution.
Solution that eliminates the pay-to-win system
The following will describe the solution we offer for Ember Sword. A method that includes what we call “PIXEL Token”.
The best alternative to Bond and Tokens
PIXEL Tokens are the premium currency in Ember Sword. This currency is located on the Ethereum blockchain and can be freely traded both inside the game and outside of it.
However, unlike the usual premium currencies in other games, PIXEL tokens exist in limited quantities, and as soon as they run out, they will always trade only between the players themselves, and not buy more from us.
But you do not need to buy PIXEL tokens.
In fact, they can be purchased in-game by selling scarce cosmetic items (hats, capes, skins, etc.) that were obtained using PVE and PVP to other players in exchange for PIXEL tokens. And then they can be spent on an additional monthly subscription to Ember Sword or sold to players outside the game for fiat or other cryptocurrencies.
Thus, instead of the old system used by most MMORPGs, where:
- The buyer purchases a Bond / Token for Fiat - sells for gold - buys items with which he becomes stronger without putting any effort and time into it.
- The seller who earned a large amount of gold (most likely using a bot) buys a subscription to the game from another player.
Our solution entails:
- A buyer who purchases PIXEL tokens for fiat or cryptocurrencies exchanges them with other players in exchange for cosmetic and other items that do not affect the balance of power in the game.
- The seller receives cosmetic items simply by playing the game - and sells them to the buyer for PIXEL tokens to then buy a monthly subscription for them.
- Creating the most powerful weapons and armor is relatively common and readily available for purchase, so your success in the game depends more on your playing skills than on your equipment. Since the most powerful equipment does not require a lot of gold to buy, the demand for gold will decrease even more, which will deprive botovodov stimulus).
In Ember Sword, there is still in-game gold (used for trading ordinary items, buying things from sellers, etc.), but using a game and economic model where the rarest and most valuable items (cosmetics) cannot be bought for gold , we keep the demand for it at a level at which bots do not have much profit.
We believe that this is a much better solution to reduce the demand for gold and prevent payouts, but at the same time, this method allows players to purchase a monthly subscription without paying Fiat. Briefly summarize PIXEL tokens:
- Can be obtained in the game for defeating PvE bosses and daily PvP matches;
- Allow players to buy a monthly subscription without spending fiat money on it;
- Makes bots much less profitable, since subscription, cosmetic items and tools, in-game lands can not be bought or sold for in-game gold;
- Eliminates the pay-to-win scenario where wealthy players gain an advantage, as PIXEL tokens can only be spent on cosmetic items. Unlike other games where you can buy “game advantage” for gold from the sale of Tokens and Bonds.
Why we create Ember Sword
By creating Ember Sword, we are creating a new generation of Free to Play MMORPGs, rethinking the model itself and what it can be.
For us, the blockchain provides an opportunity to create an alternative way for games, moving away from the predatory monetization and gambling of luthboxes, to a future in which players are constantly interested in their gaming world.
We believe that through possession of items using tokens, you can create an honest and prosperous gaming environment without pay-to-win, where players have the right of ownership and control and can safely trade cosmetics without intermediaries, but at the same time there is an opportunity for developers to monetize .
We believe in empowering artists to monetize their work, we believe in true possession of digital objects and believe in a stable decentralized digital universe created by players, with absolute freedom and without borders.
And, above all, we know that a great MMORPG starts with an agitated community that finally controls the situation! Now is the time, and we hope that you will join us on this journey!
More information on Ember Sword
The closed pre-sale of PIXEL tokens is underway right now. Open sale will begin in the first quarter of 2019.
To take part in a closed pre-sale, developers can be contacted through contacts on their Online or directly via mail sune@socouch.com.
Join the discussion in our Telegram chats:
RU - @CryptoGamingPool
EN - @CryptoGamingPool_EN