[BonesJustice]

The benefits are largely obscured by in-game currencies, which exist primarily to obfuscate the true cost of inane in-app purchases; maximize the odds of having a useless residual balance (thus encouraging more spending); and reduce barriers to spending.

Games don’t have to prompt for confirmation to spend proprietary fake money. This removes an opportunity to reconsider a purchase, and dramatically increases the chance of accidental spending. And without a dollar value that players can easily reason about, it’s easy to not realize how much you’re spending. “35 crystal whatzits? Um, okay, that doesn’t sound like much.” Never mind the fact that you actually have to buy at least 50 whatzits to have 35, because the next lowest option is to buy 25.

I don’t have any data on this, but I’d be willing to bet that revenues from in-app purchases went through the roof when someone had the bright idea to switch to an in-game currency (and, eventually, multiple currencies).