Sony Online Entertainment expands microtransaction service into EverQuest II, other MMOs
- January 25, 2010 09:42 AM PST
Micro-transactions are making a bigger impact in the major massively multiplayer online market. PoxNora, Free Realms, EverQuest, and EverQuest II are among the titles that will be affected by this new deal.
Sony Online Entertainment and microtransaction service provider Live Gamer announced a service deal this morning that would expand Live Gamer's real money trading market in PoxNora, Free Realms, EverQuest, and EverQuest II.
The real money trading market is called "Elements." The software powers microtransactions within games in a way that streamlines a lot of the fuss on both the technical side and the user side of massively multiplayer online games.
If just now you're going "So what?" consider the fact that three years ago, the only free-to-play MMO anybody had ever heard of was Maple Story. Microtransaction models have grown since then, slowly trickling into Western MMOs as more developers consider ditching their subscription-based models to get in on some of the (microtrans)action that Facebook games enjoy (see GamePro issue #258, "The Rise of Facebook Gaming").
Speaking to GamePro, Live Gamer CEO Mitch Davis broke down the benefits of the deal to users and explained the evolution of the microtransaction model. "This is a business model that's been popular in Japan and Korean," he said. "Consoles aren't as big in Asia, so online games evolved to microtransactions faster [than Western MMOs]."
Thanks to SOE's partnership, Live Gamer is now powering 125 games globally. Davis said he expects that number to climb to 200 in North America alone before 2010 is out.
"When you look [at a game] like Free Realms, you know it's good – it's robust," Davis said. "Elements enhances that, it provides a very robust microtransaction service for the user."
