[Cash Shop Idea] Game Time Token

[HPDelron]

The pros far outweigh the cons for token systems like this. At the end of the day they remove bots and don't introduce gil into the system which makes th e economy more stable. It's safer for SEs customer base, it provides a service people clearly want (that's why they're going to illegitimate 3rd parties in the first place) and it makes SE more money which is more content for you regardless of your participate in the system.

Yay, finally a way to make big money as non-crafter that doesn't rely on RM...oh wait. *cough*

Could we, at the same time, put all craft-able gear into the cash shop? Just so we can skip the middle man, otherwise a DoW/DoM would buy the RMT tokens to afford the crafted goods who in turn use that money to buy the RMT token from DoW/DoM. Might as well pay for the goods with cash directly.

This would ruin the crafter market. The most important part of these token systems is that they force a buyer to go through other players at all stages. They don't reduce the value of gil in the market because they don't get gil directly, they get a token which they exchange for gil other players have worked for. They don't reduce the value of a crafting class because the only way that gear gets generated is by a crafter.

If you let people buy gil directly it reduces the buying power of all gil in the game because you're introducing a magic currency generating ghost into the system not tied to anyone in-games activity.
If you let people buy gear directly it reduces the value of those crafting classes because crafters now have to compete against a magic gear generating ghost not tied to any in-game activity.

These kind of token systems keep things tightly bound to the productivity of the player base. They introduce no new gil and create no new items. If you think about it you are not paying SE for gil or items. You are paying SE for the right to pay other players for their time. If you pay SE $20 for a token, and then another player uses that to resub. You're basically paying the other player $15 (their sub cost) for whatever they're willing to give for you that. That nullies $15 of your $20 payment to SE, since they won't be making a sub off that player. The remaining $5 is SE's fee for letting you pay another player in real cash.

Imagine you and your roommate play the game together. Imagine you two are in a party and something sick and expensive drops you need that gil. You turn to your buddy and go "Awww man, can I have that". He goes "Ehhhhhhh" and you go "Let me have it and I'll totally buy the pizza next time we play". He goes "Okay". You have now paid him half the cost of a pizza + delivery $8 for whatever that drop is worth.

This would be basically SE charging to be a trust worthy 3rd party to facilitate this kind of trade with any other player, anywhere.