On Micropayments In Gaming

Thanks to DIY Games for its article discussing the possibility of using micropayments to pay for videogames. The author argues: "With the spread of high-speed Internet and some experiments with on-line game authentication, it seems only natural that game developers, especially the smaller ones, take advantage of micropayments", but goes on to point out possible issues, both monetary ("The most obvious argument against micropayments remains the real transaction cost. As the argument goes, each monetary transaction generates certain fees and these fees may be higher than the payment") and technical ("...the regulation of micropayments by European bureaucrats.") Are there situations where you'd prefer micropayments for playing episodic, small, or regularly updated games?

Comments

European regulation ?

[dago]

The rant against EU regulations falls someone flat for me. The main point is that micropayments are considered as electronic payments (!) and this fall under the same regulations aimin to protect customers against fraud/bankruptcy/... and to fight against money laundering

Another fact they forgot is that (micro)payments trough SMS, for SMS or web services, are largely used and probably generate more revenue in the EU than the other forms micropayments worlwide.

I'd welcome this for MMORPGs.

[scowling]

I've been playing City of Heroes, but to be honest, it's getting repetitive and boring, much like every other such game I've played. I don't want to pay $14.95 a month for it -- but I'd definitely pay fifty cents an hour, metered, to play it.

Sadly, that's not an option, so I'm going to end up canceling my subscription entirely rather than pay fifteen bucks a month on a game that I'm not going to play every day.