“No man’s Kwedit is ever as good as his money.” – Edgar Watson Howe
“It is amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares about who gets the Kwedit.” -Robert Yates (this may close to actual kwedit results)
“Be vewy, vewy quiet – I’m hunting on Kwedit” – Elmer Fudd
It is one of life’s eternal problems, and one that every game publisher will have to face at some point in their corporate existence…
How do you take the “free” out of free to play.
As we all know (and will be discussed on show 56 out later today) free to play games work because they are:
A.) Designed to make the game unplayable without enduring enough anguish, angst and general anger that it would kill a bull moose.
B.) Designed to be so grindy that given the option, Sisyphus would rather continue pushing his boulder up a hill for eternity rather than play the game.
And most importantly…
C.) Fifteen million players all play a game that is actually supported through the spending of a 13 year old in his mother’s basement who doesn’t know her child has her credit card yet.
The solution to all these woes is found in the developer’s cash shop. For those one or two of you out there who are scratching there head when the terms “cash shop” and “free to play” are mentioned…well Google it, you probably aren’t gamers, developers or game publishers anyway.
The interesting thing about the problems with free to play game design noted under “A” and “B” is that they instantly go away if you solve “C”. Now there is a company with a product it is calling “Kwedit” that believes it has indeed found the solution for all that is ill with the free to play game business model.
The system has been written about at length by Paul Hyman over at Gamasutra in an article entitled “Free To Play Games, Meet The Virtual IOU” (You can read the article here ). Here is an excerpt from the article that explains how the system works:
Here’s how Kwedit works: On websites that accept Kwedit Promises, gamers get to buy virtual items now by promising to pay up in a week or two. At that time, they can hand over cash at a store, like 7-Eleven, that takes Kwedit payments or they can “snail mail” cash in a pre-paid Kwedit envelope that can be printed right off the web.
The amount they can “promise” in the future grows — as previous promises are paid up. This increases their Kwedit score, a virtual version of a FICO credit score. The initial Kwedit limit is determined by the game publisher and might typically be just a few dollars.
Unlike using a “real world” credit card, there are no serious repercussions if a gamer reneges on their promise other than the fact that their Kwedit score falls — which may adversely impact their ability to use the system in the future.
“It’s a completely virtual simulation of credit,” says Shader, “in a completely safe environment.”
At first glance it seems like a “win-win” system right? The system caters to the impulse buyer that will grab the item and pay for it later…and there aren’t any thugs waiting in dark alleys to break your knee caps if you fail to pay. The upside for the consumer is, of course, also the downside for the publisher, as the system has no way to force the player to “pay up” if they choose not to do so – other than, of course, eventually not allowing them to buy on “Kwedit” again. One look at the picture that comes with product (see blow) reminded me of the old “Joe Cool” adds for camel cigarettes of a few decades ago, purposefully aimed at younger generations.
At least as far as western cultures are concerned, from the individual all the way up through the federal government, what has caused so many problems for so long is the whole “buying it on the never-never” attitude. Kwedit’s CEO claims the product gives parents an “incredible teaching moment”. While it may indeed provide a safe environment for buying the pile of pixels without using a credit card, there seems to be more of indoctrination than convenience inherent in the system. Kwedit will very probably teach the younger members of the target that “credit”, as Charles Dickens put it, “is a system whereby a person who can’t pay gets another person who can’t pay to guarantee that he can pay.” Or as a college friend, who attended Brigham Young university put it of his alma matter: “Brigham Young but Bring ‘em any way you can”.
See you online,
Julie Whitefeather
Now that’s fascinating and I think it may be quite successful.
Virtual items, once the asset is produced, don’t really cost anything.
So if you sell $200,000 for real money and as a result of this Kwedit scheme sell an extra $100,000 half of which is paid for and half of which isn’t you’ve made $50,000 extra simply by adopting the scheme.
You’ve also taught the next generation that it’s ok to run up a big bill on credit then not pay it but that will be a problem for someone else at some future date.
Kwedit has the possibility of going right but it can also go so incredibly wrong if some sort of safeguards aren’t put in place. As it is described in the Gamasutra article, nothing seems to prevent the player from “cleaning out” the free 2 play cash show and then refusing to pay. Multiply that by all the players in the game and the system has the potential to exacerbate the problem it was meant to solve…not to mention the potention to prey on younger players.
Julie