

What do people think about paying for virtual gifts / goods? - ChristianPerry


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ieatpaste
This works well in Asian markets due to emerging markets and Asian culture.
While it is more understated in Western culture, Asian culture is all about
progress, and monetary progress is reflected by conspicuous consumption.
Therefore, virtual gifts/goods is a display of that same progress.
Furthermore, Asians are educated through a largely abstract approach, which
allows them to understand the worth of virtual items without tangible
interaction. From a Web 2.0 perspective, Asian web clones have made more money
than its Western counterparts due to virtual gifts.

Personally, I don't think monetization through virtual goods is going to work
for Western markets unless its a very specified niche market which relies on
virtual goods already (i.e. gaming). There isn't enough social/cultural value
in virtual goods that justifies the price (even if it is just a few dollars).

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mustpax
I'm not saying you're wrong, but can you provide some supporting material when
making such broad generalizations about cultures? Are there any sociological
studies that back up these findings? Are you talking about any particular
region of Asia where this might be particularly true?

Asia is home to a great diversity of cultures and languages, a little more
discretion would be appropriate when talking about it in such definite terms.

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blader
Why not?

Whether they know it or not, most people already buy virtual goods.

Every time you buy $150 sneakers, you're buying $120 worth of virtual goods.

Bottle service at a club. $450 worth of virtual goods, $50 worth of alcohol.

An engagement ring. $10,000 worth of virtual goods. $1,000 worth of diamond.

A tier 7 rainment in WoW. $99.999 worth of virtual goods, $0.001 worth of
goods.

Etc.

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dkokelley
I've never made a virtual purchase, but I found a rare object in a video game
once and gave it to my brother as a birthday gift. I think he appreciated it
more than any physical good I could have given him.

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cte
According to [http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/facebook-selling-
digita...](http://lsvp.wordpress.com/2008/09/02/facebook-selling-digital-
gifts-at-a-35m-run-rate/) facebook is selling digital gifts at a $35m run
rate. A friend at fb tells me this number is significantly inflated though.

~~~
ChristianPerry
I wouldn't be surprised. I saw James Hong from HotORNot talk about virtual
gifts a while ago. You know what one of the biggest sources of revenue on
their site was? Flowers.

You could send three different kinds of flowers to someone -- a cheap one
($1), a medium priced one ($3), or an expensive one ($10. Yes, $10 for a
stupid little flower icon.)

People bought flowers by the hundreds of thousands; they became one of the
biggest drivers of site revenue. Moreover, and this is interesting, James said
that when someone sent a flower to a person, they were considerably more
likely to get a response when sending a message.

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staunch
The guy that sells the virtual flowers says that buying them will get you
laid? Shocking!

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ZeroGravitas
One similar thing I've never understood is card games like Magic the Gathering
and (perhaps?) Pokemon.

From what I gather this is kind of like playing poker, except you can just go
out and buy more decks to stack your hand. Just doesn't seem fair or fun to
me.

A similar partly-virtual good I can't wrap my head round is intentionally
limited-edition goods such as beanie babies.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beanie_Baby>

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fatbat
I think this trend will pick up over time. The idea of a virtual gift is a
status symbol almost. It is very similar to someone buying a Jean Paul
Gaultier belt vs a regular leather belt. Both hold your pants up but the value
comes in appearance/brand/perception of success.

With the focus now advancing in social media and virtual worlds, I am sure a
large portion of users are willing to pay to "look good" or for a show of
status.

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systemtrigger
I have never bought a virtual gift as I understand the definition. They're
silly. That may change as the interestingness and utility of these social
tokens evolves. Today they seem very...Elementary School. Back then if your
dream girl gave you a Crackerjax prize you treasured it. I'm not saying they
aren't a good business but today I put them in the same stupidity category as
gift cards.

~~~
ChristianPerry
Silly as they may seem, gift cards are a $46.9 billion industry:
[http://blogs.creditcards.com/2008/04/fed-study-deflates-
size...](http://blogs.creditcards.com/2008/04/fed-study-deflates-size-of-gift-
card-industry.php)

Now you've just given me a business idea: a gift card that works across
different virtual worlds.

~~~
systemtrigger
Well yes obviously they're a profitable industry, I don't deny that. I'd be
the first to hunt down numbers to back up what you say, I was in the card
industry myself for awhile. But I wasn't answering the question of 'are they a
good business' I was answering the question 'would I pay for today's virtual
gifts' which I understood to be your submitted topic. And I was being honest:
in my experience virtual gifts have never appealed to me _as a consumer_. I
likened them to gift cards because gift cards provide no added utility while
reducing liquidity - they're a huge _consumer_ sham. But as to whether these
items are profitable, absolutely - they're spectacularly profitable!

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teej
What do I think? I'm not sure what the question is.

Do I think it's a good business model for certain games and game-like
interactions? Absolutely.

Do I think it's silly to pay money for virtual goods? Absolutely not. You pay
for hapiness plenty of other ways, who cares what the vehicle of that emotion
is?

Have I ever purchased virtual goods? Yes. Over $2,000 across 8 games.

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ajdecon
I've paid real money for some virtual good in a game, where the good had some
active "function", but I've never bought something like a facebook gift which
simply sits on your profile. I do wonder if there might be some market for
"active" social networking goods: for-pay applications, or integration of a
low-price digital music store, etc.

