Such a game would encounter many legal issues varying from country to country. Coupled with the high risk of corruption either through exploits or staff "rigging the system", to account hacks and scams, it kinda goes against a game developer's mantra of wanting to make fun games.

This can also include games which allow steam market trading, remember that a developer gets a cut of the sale.

I wanted to play kwari badly when it was announced, but it's since died I think. Can't really tell.

http://www.kwari.com/

The basic idea is that it's a quake 3 clone, and every bullet/health point/power up is worth money. You get the other person's money from hitting them (stealing their hp), and can cash out in $5 increments.

you guys need to play entropia universe, the perfect example of a real cash economy game.

I did play EU for a number of years, but got sick of it and sold out everything and quit a couple of years ago.

For those who havn't heard of it, it is a small swedish made MMO, where the in game currency has a fixed exchange rate to dollar, making it possible to also withdraw ingame currency. The core gameplay of EU works basically like a slot machine, everything (interesting) you do in game has a cost, and has a chance of producing loot with a value. (cost and value are set by the game designers) In the long run, you will on average get back 90% of what you spend, so just playing the "slot machines" in the game will slowly grind your cash down, even though you might get the occasional rush of a big payout.

In game items also has a markup, a market value, so the main way to get ahead of the slot machine is trading, and people spending a lot of time with that actually can make a bit of a profit. Most items are in tree categories. Vanity items like clothes and houses, convenience items like vehicles (also part vanity), and items that allows you to play the slot machine with higher stakes. (like a weapon with higher damage, but also higher ammo consumption (cost to use it))

It's an interesting model, but too me it made the game feel too much like work, I was definitely addicted to it for some time, and the addition of real cash really brings out the worst in people... So I decided to quit and play other games I found more fun.

Unless I would spends countless hours of trading, the rest of the game got too expensive for the fun it gave me.

I'm pretty sure the real cash economy part was a big reason both for why I started playing, and for why I stopped playing.

I prefer to just pay for entertainment while I play games, and I want a bound on what I pay.

I want to know exactly what I get for what I pay, and I am not a gambler.

Therefore, neither free to play nor real cash economy is very interesting to me. I don't need a second job. I just want to have some fun when I game.

So to your extremely loaded question in the OP, I answer "never".

If the model EU have been using for over 10 years now was that perfect, why havn't they taken over everything by now? Or at least spawned a few competitors?

Why are they still struggling with a fraction of the user base of other competing MMOs?

i totaly agree with you SirWeebly, games makes you pay to not play, what its just ridiculous, developers create a game but they sell the opportunity not to play it. another thing is that nobody knows what to do with players that play those free to play games without money, but play it all day the way the game was meant to be played.they are told to get a job and not play... its the most ridiculous thing ive heard in my entire gaming experience. games are just for some they say, making free to play a hypocrisy.

Olof Hedman, first of all, are you a developer or a gamer? because developers dont game, and when they game they dont want just to have fun. second, i guess you are just jealous of that little swedish company because they have made something that nobody have the guts to make. yes it is true that the money is the most appealing feature of the game, no its not true that its just like you said a slot machine, yes it feels like work, but i just want to add some stuff you missed out there describing entropia universe:

entropia universe is the most expensive game in the market (and maybe thats whats bothering you and you quited playing) and at the same time its the one that gives players money if they work gathering a resource from mobs that dont even use ammo, its just a machine like a laser beam that you have to aim to mobs, simple as that. this is the work you have to do if you dont want to invest money in other stuff.

in any case you can igonre that work ang get your fun killing stuff, doing missions, etc. levels there takes years, literaly years to progress, when you level up a skill its an investment (with time or money), for example, its true that loot is a slot machine, but when you level up the aim skill for example you use less ammo to kill the same ammount of mobs you would kill at the early levels of the same aim skill. for example the armours that you use get depleted, but if your level is higher enough the same armour lasts longer. its an investment in any case, everything you do in the game have a skill, the more you do that thing the more the skill level, the more the skill level the more profitable it becomes, it is simple, not my fault you dont know how to play it right olof. i cant play entropia at the moment cause im banned, but when i played i was sweating (it is the work thing i did not shot a single bullet of ammo to save money) but i always knew people played that game to much confidente, they play it like they had the money to play it as they were thinking they could, but in fact, people just dont accept beeing poor in a game and go sweat like i was doing, thats why they quit.

what i mean with that bold section is that even myself totaly afirming and assuming that i am only a gamer, i never play a game just to participate in all competitiveness there there are in games, its what it is, its a sport, its like football, there is no fun, there is practise to get good and im not saying thats bad, im a compettitive person also. but even that aside, i dont play just for that or fun, i play cause i really like games, i like to learn their methods, study their mechanics, im an interested person in gaming in general, im very carefull with companies since they dont care about me, i try to have atention in everything, i question why things are how they are. and im just a gamer, you can imagine what a developer thinks when gaming.

yes of corse im talking about free-to-play, can you tell me what other tonnes of things you could play out there?

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Olof Hedman, first of all, are you a developer or a gamer? because developers dont game, and when they game they dont want just to have fun.

I'm both now. While playing EU I was just a gamer though, but like you I had a deep interest in games, and thought EU was a really cool concept. So I played it a lot, and studied it as much as I could, and had lots of fun while doing it. Most of the fun was in community interaction though, as most MMOs, the actual game play felt more and more like a grind fest.

And when I felt I had figured out how it all worked, and after getting scammed by someone I trusted, (silly amount, like $10, which made it even worse), I lost interest.

The business model is basically pay to play, unless all you do is gathering sweat (the free resource gathering), Mindark themselfs says their target average cost for a player is 1$/hour.

its true that loot is a slot machine

The thing is, the game play revolves around that "slot machine". Equipment and skill have the main purpose to enable you to craft higher level stuff, and kill bigger mobs.

But that just means a higher stake, you spend more, for a chance of bigger loot.

The payout is still around 90%. I've run enough cash through it, recorded in excel sheets, to be pretty confident that's the approximate number. Sometimes a big Hall of Fame loot puts you on plus temporary, but then it inches back to 90 again. Now its not just cash in, cash out, it all goes through items, some with a bit of market markup value, which helps keeping it interesting. But if you reduce it to the base values, we're back to the slot machine model.

I too had the idea that skill (EU name for XP) would improve my odds, but the effect is almost negligible, like a fraction of a percentage. I like the system where you can sell your skill to other players though, that helps offset things a bit, but not much.. Skill mostly enables you to use higher level (higher stake) equipment at full efficiency (90% payout), before skilling up, you lose even more trying to use them. Exactly because of the real cash economy, they can't allow too much variance between equipment, or the market would destabilize.

entropia universe is the most expensive game in the market (and maybe thats whats bothering you and you quited playing) and at the same time its the one that gives players money if they work gathering a resource from mobs that dont even use ammo, its just a machine like a laser beam that you have to aim to mobs, simple as that. this is the work you have to do if you dont want to invest money in other stuff.

Exactly. I did not find the cost was worth the fun I got from it.

EU is ridiculously expensive if you want to play it at a higher level.

And "sweat gathering", the free activity that can bring income you mention... unless the sweat prices have increased a hundredfold since last I played, it would be more time efficient to collect recyclable cans in real life and deposit that cash... And probably a lot more fun :)

The one thing in EU that puts it apart from just being a dressed up online casino, is the market economy. That really does change things a lot. There also is a system where players can buy property, that give them a cut from any loot on it, which makes them kind of partners. There definitely was some opportunity in it, but most of the margins very slim, and it took a lot of work, and massive volumes, or huge investments, to get any reasonable income. (and I don't mean it should pay your real life bills, just your ingame bills...)

I once really believed in real cash economy games in general, but while Mindarks (the company behind EU) business model is interesting, I don't see how it has any potential to take over "any genre".

Now I only want to play, and make, games where you pay up front for real content, not getting slowly milked for money...

Edit: Added some parenthesis, and edits to make it more understandable for readers that have never heard of Entropia Universe...