Champions Online VIP Interview - Cryptic Bucks, PvP Update, and More

ThomasN7

The explanation of Cryptic Bucks..

 

Ten Ton Hammer: What the hell is a Cryptic Buck? (RawGutts)

Roper: As I mentioned earlier, Cryptic has a set of core technology that we build upon, and being able to have digital distribution for things that are both inside and outside the game was very important to us. We wanted to have a system in place that allowed people to get stuff that way.

So we came up with these Cryptic Bucks, and you can use those to get anything inside or outside of the game. We basically wanted to allow players to have a denomination that can be used across everything that Cryptic does. It’s definitely something we’ve fleshed out as we look towards the future as well. We’ll have players that are bouncing between CO and Star Trek Online, so they can use those for either game. Or maybe they just want to get a hat.

As opposed to having to do billing for three different or four different solutions, we just made Cryptic bucks and are allowing players to use them wherever they want. It’s actually a model that gets used quite a bit in Asia, for those developers or publishers that have several different online games. You see that concept a little bit with US game cards, but traditionally that’s just used to pay off a subscription fee.

We’re trying to expand that out, so that if players get something with Cryptic bucks on it, they can go “Oh! I want pay for my subscriptions on these two games and buy this product from their store. “

Ten Ton Hammer: So more of a way to fully integrate the various aspects of you distribution?

Roper: Yup! We’re trying to make it easier for everybody; easier for the player and easier for the developers, because it’s always one point that it goes through.

Ten Ton Hammer: Thanks Bill, and we'll talk to you soon!

 

 

Source:  www.tentonhammer.com/node/71000