Now, the items that give advantages need to be small advantages and not to the point where it's totally gamebreaking... You may even get away with just selling high end items that can be earned in game as well. But I'm positive that powerful items that can't be obtained in game will sell the best.

Yes, you will have a vocal minority that complains *A LOT* but the end result will be a huge increase in profit. People have misunderstandings when it comes to what "free to play with cash shop" actually means. It means "if you want to play this game seriously or on any sort of competitive level, you're going to have to pay to get there". For most people who just want to play for free, they are fine with knowing that they are at a slight disadvantage to those who pay. You get what you pay for. Too often people just assume "free to play" means "I should never have to pay for this game and should be able to get everything I want/need without paying".

the paying, and thus working, people may catch up to the free people due to their time limits. It makes sense to me. And if you have a tight schedule at a job and want to play more, you just buy additional time.[/quote]
I disagree. It pretty much ends up being like this: "You're buying the game rather than playing it". If you don't have time to play it, make time, don't buy extra stuff and say you played it. It's not worth it. Games are supposed to be for fun or relaxation, not ... paying money. They're made to be played.

I think micro-transactions should be limited to graphical, appearance-changing items rather than gameplay-changing items, such as more powerful weapons. Guild Wars released a set of costumes, which only alter appearance, and within the next day everyone was wearing one...besides me, because I thought it was useless. Why pay to look like everyone else? But that's not the point. The point is that it worked for a huge sum of the playerbase.

I also think it would be good if the micro-transaction items could also be earned through free play. For example, an MOFPS game that only has PvP. If it makes players pay G-ShalamaCoins or whatever they feel like calling it (it's cheesier every time), then it's annoying because other players can't use it at all. They're blocked out from part of the game's content and most of them, such as myself, will always be blocked out because they aren't foolish enough to pay money for it. That is an entry of anti-design: an implementation that cripples or downgrades your game design.
My solution would be to offer them for both G-ShalamaCoins and in-game coins (which would probably be Garudos or some other made up word instead of 'gold'...)

Anyway, this is the end tag of my rant, I guess... </rant>

Plus, a paying customer is less likely to be abusing, cheating, scamming, because having his account banned means losing the "invested" money. For a F2P player, the worst thing to happen is to lose something that was free in the first place and reopening another account with another throwaway email.

Accelerators and Boosters - Essentially players pay in game currency to speed up the game experience. Level faster, teleport to locations, get better item drops, reduce elapsed time.

Premium Gear - The best gear/items/and abilities are only available to player who purchase them.

Dehandicap - Essentially the free experience is so limited that the player feels handicapped and the only way to get a decent experience is pay to unlock features.[/quote]

Ok, ok, its safe to say we all have good idea of the current trend. However, there has to be other ways to employ Microtransactions in our games that have yet to be discovered. As a Independent Game Developer, I believe we can be a little more creative with our implementations. How about a Brainstorm Session to find other ways to utilize Microtransactions? Maybe something new and trendy will surface. To help facilitate the thought process, I'll post a phrase. For this phrase, generate as many answers as possible no matter how off-the-wall, with NO regard to players. Afterwards, we can can go thru the answers, fine-tune their definitions, analyze potential advantages/disadvantages, then decide to save or delete them. To participate, just quote the The Brainstorm Session Phrase, followed by your answer(s).

Are you ready to play? Ok, here we go.

[color="#FF0000"] [color="#FF0000"][color="#0000FF"][color="#000000"]The Brainstorm Session Phrase: [size="4"]How many ways can you sell everything in your game, over and over again?

1. Asset Creation (Textures, Meshes, Audio) for In-Game Advertisements
2. Advertisement Runs In-Game (Time-Limited)
3. Advertisement Runs Website (Time-Limited)