[reggieband]

I know this is a crazy thought and not inline with a lot of the blizzard hate - but why don't games like this allow more gifting style mechanics?

I consider the Twitch gift sub market. And I consider that weird crypto game Axie Infinity. It seems we are only considering the purchasing power of whales that want to flex. What about whales that want to collaborate. Whales that want to demonstrate their generosity.

I remember a reddit post about a guy who had a rich friend that would constantly take him on wild adventures that the poorer friend couldn't afford. The rich guy didn't care about spending the money and the poor guy was good company.

I think an interesting monetization mechanic would be a game where the pay-to-win aspect was in the recruitment and outfitting of other players. So as a poor player I could have the opportunity to earn high-level gear based on the spending of a whale whose campaign I was joining.

[cableshaft]

This was one thing I appreciated about Pokemon Go! when it first came out and everyone was playing it. It's one of the only free-to-play games that got me happily buying the in-game currency to buy items, because I could buy and use the (don't remember what it was anymore, too long ago, I'm sure someone else here remembers) item that attracted Pokemon to my area for a half hour at a time, and all players in the region benefitted.

So I was buying and deploying these things over and over again just so my wife and kids in the area could have more fun. I specifically remember we attended a wedding at Disney World and my wife (girlfriend at the time) couldn't move around because of a recent surgery (I pushed her around Disney World in a wheelchair the whole time), so me buying those things let her capture Pokemon from our hotel room, and I could see a bunch of other people in the area playing as well. I hope I helped several kids enjoy playing the game more during that time.

I'd love more games to have something similar. If something only benefits me in a game I don't feel too motivated to buy it, as I can usually just deal without and progress slower, of just play a different game altogether.

It doesn't have to be specific to your physical region (although I think that helps, it was cool to think I was helping people near me), but maybe just where you're at within a game world, or something.

[wbobeirne]

You end up with a huge security incentives problem. If there's a way to extract the value from one account and give it to another, you massively increase the incentive to phish users, set up black markets for buying items off of a hacked account, or just transfer it to your own.

[snek_case]

You could set up a payment system to buy items that's not a player account. You buy an item just to give. There's still a phishing incentive, but is it worse than any of the other content you can buy online?

[Jenk]

Credit Card theft/fraud is why. If it was possible to "transfer" funds like this then mechanisms for fraudulent purchases will increase dramatically. Eve Online introduced purchasing in-game currencies because it was rife on the "black market" anyway and they also saw a huge number of fraudulent purchases and/or charge backs. 3rd party grey "broker" sites popped up with way below market rate prices, 99% of which are using fraudulent CCs to fund them, and bot accounts to transfer the in-game stuff.

[matthewfcarlson]

Why not steal the idea of Pokémon go? Transfer doesn’t go to a person but to an area or group of people. You could pay to unlock an area and take a group of people on a quest. Or perhaps a boost or buff in an area.

[snek_case]

If you can't gift items, it seems like a huge missed opportunity because I feel like there's a lot of things people don't buy for themselves but they might be willing to buy for other people as a gift.

For instance I don't think I would ever spend 30 dollars on a bottle of wine to drink at dinner, but I could pay 50 or 60 to buy a bottle of wine as a special gift to a friend.

[TrapLord_Rhodo]

Whoa, very interesting! i'd love to play this game.

> spending of a whale whose campaign I was joining.

Also, for me very punishing mechanics with high risk, high reward games have had an underserved market place. I love pking on a variety of different MMO's and sometimes when you are pking in max gear you are risking 10g's IRL. Full Torva on runescape is 6g's and once you add up the rest of the rings and amulets, you can easily be risking $15,000.00 IRL money.

However, there is no benefit to anyone besides yourself. Clans are 'superficial' as there is no real 'shared loot' system, clan building requirements outside 'daily's', but being the biggest clan doesn't give you 'benefits' outside a few dailys and some xp.

[shpx]

When I was 11 some guy randomly gave me like 20k gp and dragonhide in RuneScape and I haven't forgotten that moment in the mines outside of Varrock since.

[minimaxir]

There are a few F2P games which offer a wishlist/gifting mechanic. (I know Path of Exile does).

Unclear how successful it would be.

[duskwuff]

Even Path of Exile only allows gifting microtransactions through explicit interactions with support, and they're somewhat picky about verifying that you're buying the items for someone you know personally -- they're going out of their way to avoid letting players trade in-game equipment for paid cosmetic items.