Ten Ton Hammer interviewed Cryptics Bill Roper to discuss the model of mictro-transactions that will be used in Champions Online.
If there was some item that had an effect in-game that would give you – I’m going to make something up, so this is not an item in-game or anything – so something that gave you maybe an increased energy regeneration rate or something along those lines, there would be a way for you to get that in the game. I think that the biggest thing though, with the items that people are going to get though micro-transactions there will be some things where maybe that will be the only way you can get them yet none of them are things where you might say, “man, I can’t believe I didn’t get that” whereas there’s tons and tons and tons and tons more things that you can only get by playing the game.
So again, micro-transactions aren’t the focus, a lot of things are simply going to be, I guess you’d say, ‘vanity’ items. But we want to have things like that in the game that players do push for and want to get.
The way I look at it, from a player’s standpoint, there are certain things I’ve wanted in MMOs where I’m like, “man, I really should get that item.” I know that if I was part of a big giant guild and we did raids over and over again, and I got on the list that maybe I’m going to get that item. And it’s not even because that item has a gameplay effect; it’s that cool mount, or that cool pet that is a super rare drop or that kind of thing. I don’t have that kind of gaming time, and I’m not part of a big giant guild so it would be tougher to get some of those kinds of things too. But if I had the opportunity to get something that was similar or something that I felt was equally cool, so not even necessarily the exact same thing, I might say, “Oh cool, I’m going to buy this cool pet for myself.” I don’t think that negates from the enjoyment of my game, or the enjoyment other people have with their game because they’re going to be getting stuff that’s equally as cool if not cooler by playing, but they didn’t have to spend any money on it.