This post is about idea’s on the item shop and market that Cost [GS] Galactic Standards. The following post is based on viewing on multiple games have started, and ended, or are still progressing.
Blizzard ET stated something to the effect " we have found that in general item shop games general more annual income, but its monthly income game is not stable, as a result of the high costs, we have chosen monthly income as opposed to annual.
A great many games have been created as item shop games, Lets take a look at a few and their result.
Runes of Magic
this game took the concept of making an item shop where the people spending money will become so powerful that a level 30 could one shot a level 60. The equivalent is a rank 3 killing a rank 14. Income of the game is around 1.4 million a year.
League of Legends
LoL Is slightly different then the typical “pay to win” Concept. League of legends like very few other cash shop games, has made a successful game, with one of the fastest growing companies in the gaming world. Riot Games generates around 348 million a year from this game, purely on graphical / sprite upgrades that are bought via the item shop.
A testament to how much people really like “cruising in style”.
Overview
Things not to do
Short: Make the game pay to win
Long: Things like upgrading the modules far beyond the other mods is a way to destroy the game very quickly and cause the game to die very quickly. At most the modules should be 5% upgrade from the games best variation. There are many other means of making income then to consider going to “pay to win” concepts.
Things to do
Short: Focus on things that do not give tactical advantages or statistical advantages over others via buying from the item/market shop(s).
Long: A great amount of options are there for income for the game via getting players to buy stuff from the item shop.
Among them are some of the following which will provide players with great urgency to buy GS to obtain such things. It is extremely important to recognize that there are two types of incomes from cash shop items, one that is constantly bought, and one that is bought less frequently and is more expensive. Examples of this are
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Color changes to ships (a constant and frequent seller, likely going to be the bread and butter of the game)
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Guild upgrades ( See Clan related Upgrades ) (none-constant, but expensive)
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Clan Related Upgrades: Station Decorations. Things like new guild station backgrounds, loading bays, external graphics, Drone graphics, Beacon graphics are among the most common and easily implemented upgrades.
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Ship Related Upgrades (None Sprite): This will be one of the other “universal constants” in this game (Like what i did there? Hehe). This will likely support Color changing the ship to be the bread and butter of the game’s income. Things in this area will be upgrades like contrails, weapons fire (colors), missile trails and so forth.
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Sprite Related Upgrades: Things from here will be from the area of new ship graphics.
If i have an Osprey ship, it upgrades to a Eagle (Ship graphic) Which is better looking.
Other examples of sprite upgrades will include things like Missile sprite upgrades, Cloaking sprite upgrades, warp Sprite upgrades (Empire interceptor) Or even when open universe is related, you will have other such upgrades like Station changes (Clan owned) Or stellar travel changes, and so forth.
- Other : there are many other options in the world for changing things, Such as UI make overs, or even clan-created graphics being added to the game and much much more, so don’t forget there is always something that was missed.