On Real-Life Monetary Profit versus In-Game Trade: Recommendation.
To: Appropriate Readers,
The following suggestion is more for business stakeholders of the game, whether formal or informal, to which development of the game is taken as secondary in consideration. It is understandable that the Settlers Online is free-to-play. Thus, I shall precipice by stating that there are many free-to-play online games that are of the same or different genre, to that of the Settlers Online. Hence, to refuse all conflicting arguments, the difference between the Settlers Online, versus free-to-play games of either same or different in genre, should be reduced to, especially in an ever competitive virtual gig economy, the input from monetary payments with real-life currency, and the respective in-game features that add to what has being in stock as free-to-play. The specific in-game resource of "gold", and again, as a recommendation, should be replaced with in-game "gems", that require a player to pay with a real-life currency, to access whatever "gold" gives the player access to. Console games, as an example, especially in a gig-economy, after the dot-com boom, have you play by purchasing a console, to which the "software" of a game is added on top, thus, the summed price for a console game would expect quality gameplay experience. By no means am I suggesting that the Settlers Online copy or try to compete with console games, as a free-to-play; am merely using console games as an example to contrast the expectations given between a free-to-play versus a virtual game that can be played with without a high performing laptop. Settlers Online, as a free-to-play, despite what it seems, have the advantage against console games, is that the low capital investment to play Settlers Online as a free-to-play, versus the high capital investment that console games require with hardware, should be exploited. Settlers Online is portable. Console games is sedentary. And the portability of free-to-play Settlers Online, is compatible with real-life monetary currency, unlike console games. Thus, to replace in-game "gold" with "gems", would be highly advantageous for business stakeholders, simply because you can make purchases from anywhere in the world, and play then and there, with the rewards from monetary input, unlike console games where you have to await to return back to your room to enjoy a gameplay.
More than happy to provide more input, should more input be necessarily required.
