Over at Press the Buttons, Matt G has waxed philosophically about microtransactions, and what they mean for the industry. He predicts doom and gloom for fans of affordable gaming. I know his mindset. I was there ten years ago. As I’ve aged, though, I’ve actually become more open to the idea. I’m not there yet, but I’m intrigued by the possibilities.

Microtransactions are not a new idea. 3DO and Sega both experimented with the technology back in the ’90s, and neither initiative really got off the ground. The problems weren’t all market pressure — it feels risky to claim that Microtransactions are going to be your bread and butter when many MMOs can’t keep from occasionally double-billing you. It feels financially unsound when many MMOs can’t keep the occasional dupe bug from slipping through the cracks. It feels legally terrifying when many MMOs occasionally just plain lose a player house. Microtransactions takes these engineering problems, and elevates them from ‘this is pretty damned important’ to ‘if this doesn’t work flawlessly, we’ll all be wearing barrels in a Tijuana jail’.

That hasn’t stopped people from trying, though. Online, money games are just as feasibly as your standard time-based MMO. I’ve been dabbling with Magic the Gathering Online a bit, and last night it had a couple thousand people on it. Sure, it’s not going to beat WoW’s population, but it’s clear that their average customer is spending more per capita than in your average MMO account.

Achaea is another game that makes the most out of microtransactions. They are a pay-for text-based MUD , but they use microtransactions to lower the barrier to entry — you can play a significant portion of the game for free. Last I heard, Furcadia was doing something similar. If you have a MMO game design idea that seems ‘wacky’ or ‘out there’, it’s hard to get people to want to commit to a monthly fee. Americans hate commitment. Even though they cognitively know that a month of online gaming is cheaper than a night at the movies, they can visualize themselves opening up a credit card bill and saying, “Shit, I thought I cancelled that.”

On the other hand, Americans are big impulse shoppers. We buy the name brand when the generic’s just as good. We fill our homes with lots of useless crap. We supersize. This would suggest that there’s a good argument that if you made an MMO that was free to play but made it’s money on impulse purchases, you might end up doing very well. If, on the other hand, you’re charged $50 bucks to play, $10 bucks a month plus $3 bucks for each piece of ammo in your gun, you’re just going to be percieved as trying to screw the customer forwards AND backwards.

Could this be fun? It’d be different. It would probably be a ‘money’ game. It would take an entirely new mindset. The game would have to be built around a smaller community. But it can work, I do think it’s coming, and someone’s going to succeed. Microtransactions are already huge in Korea. There are free chat rooms, fully financially supported by players wanting to choose new avatar options (with no other game functionality whatsoever!) At GDC, Raph Koster said that one of the big new things over in Korea was a golf game that supported microtransactions — to hear him describe it, you could pay a little extra for a one-time driving bonus that never offered you tangible benefit again.

Could it be fun? That’s the important question. Which brings me to the real reason I’ve generally opposed microtransactions over the last 10 years: usually, marketing and business guys are trying to figure out how to do it. Designers need to figure this problem out. Otherwise, we’ll end up with attempts that feel a lot less like fun, and a lot more like we’re picking up the customer and shaking him until the change falls out of his pockets.

Make no mistake, MMO game developers are trying to get as much money out of our customers as we can, but due to the long-term nature of the medium, it’s also crucial that we make you feel good about your purchase. Unfortunately, in today’s environments, an American designer is typically afraid to bring up the specter of microtransactions for fear of guys wearing suits going crazy with the concept. The catty part of me suspects the most fun American game based on a microtransaction model is going to be a small, nimble company, if only for the relative lack of pinstripes and polo shirts.

Original comments thread is here.