One solution I can think of in your case is :

- Start players with $0.

- Make them do some work for their starting capital.

- This work is avaliable forever.

- The returns from doing this work is far below all other activities.

The game is 100% player economy driven. That's the point of the entire game. It's why I'm making the sandbox game to start with. The players have control and build the world. So starting with $0 isn't really an option from what I can see as money has to get into the game somehow without any NPC involvement.

If someone buys 5 accounts, he "kind of" deserves having 5x the start gold, too.

It ruins the integrity of the game which can hurt the game in the long run. The game is also going to be on the low cost side so it wouldn't be a big deal for someone to get 50 accounts if they really wanted to have a ton of money.

I would never restrict on IP as I know the dangers there already.

Allthough wouldn't your name and address be tied to the cards anyway(Last time i checked my billing address is tied to all my physical and virtual creditcards), so it should still be possible to tie the purchases to the individual.

This is a good point. I could require a paypal account be used, which then paypal sort of takes care of the uniqueness on their end since you can't have one card linked to multiple paypal accounts. However I fear this might be limiting in the people that would play the game then if they don't have or don't want a paypal account. Can't we just use social security numbers already :) Come on world, we need to uniquely ID people for certain things :)

Theoretically anybody can have a Paypal account with an email address, you don't have to add a credit card. And social security number is US specific.

And forcing people to give these is not generally a good idea. Not to mention Paypal or credit card, some people are even hesitant to SMS confirmation. People are not obliged to play your game after all.

Also as you mentioned IP tracking is impossible. The problem with catching multies is you can't bear a false positive, it lowers your success rate.

And I disagree with Legendre about holy grail of PBBGs, in a persistant game you can't tolerate multi account.

[quote name='SimonForsman' timestamp='1357916962' post='5020330']
Allthough wouldn't your name and address be tied to the cards anyway(Last time i checked my billing address is tied to all my physical and virtual creditcards), so it should still be possible to tie the purchases to the individual.

[/quote]

Yeah, that's true.

However, I think you need to give up on limiting number of accounts. What's to stop me from having my relatives or friends buying me additional accounts?

If you design the game where having multiple accounts gives the player a major advantage, the players that actually manage to get multiple accounts (and they will!) will certainly break the integrity.

Not to mention Paypal or credit card, some people are even hesitant to SMS confirmation. People are not obliged to play your game after all.

People aren't obligated to play WoW or Runescape either but they give their credit card. I plan on having the game be 1 time $5 for the game and $3 a month. My goal is to make money on the game as well as provide a fun experience, so those who don't want to pay are already out of my scope and I'm OK with that.

I know limiting accounts is probably a bad idea (after all if someone wants multiple I'm willing to take their money) and there are ways around it, although the ways are still somewhat limiting and so fewer people will do it which is good (I don't need to eliminate it just make it difficult where most players won't bother), but balancing that with the integrity of the game is rough. The characters have needs that have to be met right away so I can't delay currency for a month or so. Trading for things is a nightmare and I don't think players would like that very much. The design of the game requires zero NPC's and I have to work around that requirement, although there is a "government" concept in the game.

I guess I could probably just hunt for cheaters in game. Track all money transactions and flag suspicious activity. If someone has just joined the game and gives all their money to another person you can bet that's a cheater. Watch marketplace sales for outrageous prices between 2 players, etc. Maybe that could even be part of the "real" aspect of the game. People cheat in real life too and all we can do is track them down. I could make rewards for finding cheaters so if someone brags about cheating with multiple accounts and they turn in that player they get a cash reward! Or perhaps the money the cheater has goes into a lottery of sorts so anyone could win it making everyone happy to turn in cheaters.

So maybe you can have multiple accounts as long as you aren't just giving a bunch of money to your other accounts via some of the ways below.

Possible Cheating

==============

1) New player gives all money to another player.

2) Player A consistently gives player B money to a point where player A has very little.

3) A lower price item(s) goes for insanely high cost on a marketplace.

In my game money can only change hands via a marketplace or a contract of service. The contract provides the money trail and can be viewed for outrageous contracts. You cannot give money to another player directly in my game. This also removes people begging for money.

This actually might be a fun part on my side

Any others you can think of?

And forcing people to give these is not generally a good idea. Not to mention Paypal or credit card, some people are even hesitant to SMS confirmation. People are not obliged to play your game after all.

Quoted for truth. For me, having a game ask for my social security number would be "WTF???". No way. I might indeed be inclined to report you to IC3.

SMS confirmation? My reaction would be "Did you guys smoke crack?". There is no way you could convince me that you need to know my mobile number for a game. I'm not telling my mobile number to that Nigerian attorney who offers to give me 2 million dollars in exchange for transferring his 50 million either.

Even paying by credit card is something I'd only do if you use a well-known and (at least somewhat) trustworthy payment processing provider (and no, PayPal and MoneyBookers are definitively not among these).

Any such thing will lose you a lot of customers.

Even paying by credit card is something I'd only do if you use a well-known and (at least somewhat) trustworthy payment processing provider (and no, PayPal and MoneyBookers are definitively not among these).

Since when is paypal not a well-known and trust payment processing provider? That's getting a little crazy I think. From my research Runescape uses PayPal and I think they are doing just fine. I think paypal is a fine payment processing provider, and it doesn't require you to have a PayPal account to make the payment.

Not to mention Paypal or credit card, some people are even hesitant to SMS confirmation. People are not obliged to play your game after all.

People aren't obligated to play WoW or Runescape either but they give their credit card. I plan on having the game be 1 time $5 for the game and $3 a month. My goal is to make money on the game as well as provide a fun experience, so those who don't want to pay are already out of my scope and I'm OK with that.

I know limiting accounts is probably a bad idea (after all if someone wants multiple I'm willing to take their money) and there are ways around it, although the ways are still somewhat limiting and so fewer people will do it which is good (I don't need to eliminate it just make it difficult where most players won't bother), but balancing that with the integrity of the game is rough. The characters have needs that have to be met right away so I can't delay currency for a month or so. Trading for things is a nightmare and I don't think players would like that very much. The design of the game requires zero NPC's and I have to work around that requirement, although there is a "government" concept in the game.

I guess I could probably just hunt for cheaters in game. Track all money transactions and flag suspicious activity. If someone has just joined the game and gives all their money to another person you can bet that's a cheater. Watch marketplace sales for outrageous prices between 2 players, etc. Maybe that could even be part of the "real" aspect of the game. People cheat in real life too and all we can do is track them down. I could make rewards for finding cheaters so if someone brags about cheating with multiple accounts and they turn in that player they get a cash reward! Or perhaps the money the cheater has goes into a lottery of sorts so anyone could win it making everyone happy to turn in cheaters.

So maybe you can have multiple accounts as long as you aren't just giving a bunch of money to your other accounts via some of the ways below.

Possible Cheating

==============

1) New player gives all money to another player.

2) Player A consistently gives player B money to a point where player A has very little.

3) A lower price item(s) goes for insanely high cost on a marketplace.

In my game money can only change hands via a marketplace or a contract of service. The contract provides the money trail and can be viewed for outrageous contracts. You cannot give money to another player directly in my game. This also removes people begging for money.

This actually might be a fun part on my side

Any others you can think of?

I thought your game would be freemium, if it is subscription based then ofc go all with forced authentication.

If money will only find its way through marketplace or contract, your options for tracking is better due to this limit.

People aren't obligated to play WoW or Runescape either but they give their credit card

Yes, but... to RBS Worldpay, not to you. That's the difference.

Yes, but... to RBS Worldpay, not to you. That's the difference.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to personally be doing anything with payments. I'll be using a 3rd party for all of that. I don't want anything to do with processing payments myself.

Since when is paypal not a well-known and trust payment processing provider? That's getting a little crazy I think. From my research Runescape uses PayPal and I think they are doing just fine. I think paypal is a fine payment processing provider, and it doesn't require you to have a PayPal account to make the payment.

PayPal is well-known, but was never trustworthy. PayPal operates as a bank without fulfilling the obligations of a bank because they claim that they are not a bank (although they are in every respect), according to some legal sophistries. You have no guarantees that your money is not suddenly "gone" once it enters PayPal. This is not only the case in the admittedly unlikely case that PayPal goes bankrupt. There are countless examples of small/medium businesses that had to close because PayPal decided from one day to the other that they will (for some reason nobody can understand) retain the money. For someone who has expenses (say, a car parts dealer) and who has already paid for the goods, this is instant death.

That, and the fact that you must register and abide to some obscure terms of service. I own a VISA card exactly for the reason that I do not need to register and that I have a guarantee. I do not need to abide to some random guy's rules (PayPal or otherwise). Payment against service/goods, otherwise refund. Backed by unlimited insurance. No risk on my end.

It is true that Runescape in the mean time also uses PayPal (they did not in the beginning!), but that is for another reason.

PayPal accepts customers that are as untrustworthy as itself. In other words, people who will not be given a credit card by any bank (either because of age or because of non-existent credibility). Now, sometimes, one has to value one evil against the other. These people are not trustworthy, but you still want their money. How to get to that money?

You're not going to get it unless you also allow something like PayPal (or pay-by-SMS or pay-by-instant-cash or whatever they're called).