Making Money

[Mikewa33]

I know most games dont make money but i am working on a game and plan to have a store where people can buy cheap items were talking 35 cents to maybe a dollar is this aloud using EO

[Robin]

Is it allowed? Yes.

Will it work? No.

[Mikewa33]

Well i wasn't planning for it to be all pay just like items to help u boost xp gain or stuff along that lines

[dxxknight]

I think what robin was saying is it probably won't work because a) to work properly you'd have to know how to intergrate the store on your website with your game so the items instantly go to your ingame character. B) not many people if any usually buy items for eclipse games. C) in order to sell virtual items the graphics you're using must be custom.

[Godlord]

Let me actually expand that:

* In order to make users capable of buying items from your website, you'll have to set up PayPal or something similar to make users capable of transferring money.
* When the money gets transferred, the user should get the item in-game, and this should be done through an automatic system. If you can't set that up, you can't do it, unless you feel like doing it manually.
* In order to actually get any income from your game, all resources must be custom, or you must have the privileges from the rightful owners for each of the resources you use that aren't yours.
* To actually get income, you should register a company in your country. If you don't, you're not playing by the rules of the game and you are avoiding tax for instance, which is illegal.

Even if you get all this set up, it will most-likely not work, since many people won't be interested. Not to mention that it might ruin the entire balance of your game, if you do it wrong (and many games are an example of how it shouldn't be done).

Regards,
  Stephan.

[Mikewa33]

I actually have a person who knows php and mysql who says they are up to it. I was also planning to make everything custom in my game. I know that balancing will be a issue which i would put alot of testing into make it fair. Thank you though at least i know what i am up against.

[dxxknight]

thanks S.J.R but yeah as long as you follow those rules and set everything up right then you can go ahead and do it but as S.J.R said it's not really reccommened the best way is have a Donation button on your site seems like that is the way to go.

[Godlord]

@dxxknight:

> thanks S.J.R but yeah as long as you follow those rules and set everything up right then you can go ahead and do it but as S.J.R said it's not really reccommened the best way is have a Donation button on your site seems like that is the way to go.

Keep in mind though that donations actually require you to have a company/business registered as well in some/most countries, even though many people never bothered registering a company/business and simply have a PayPal-account set up, which obviously works, but is risk-taking (If your country enforces company/business registration and tracks you down, they'll fine you). So it's best to look it up in your country before considering to take any of such actions.

Regards,
  Stephan.

[SawQuart]

@S.J.R.:

> Keep in mind though that donations actually require you to have a company/business registered as well in some/most countries, even though many people never bothered registering a company/business and simply have a PayPal-account set up, which obviously works, but is risk-taking (If your country enforces company/business registration and tracks you down, they'll fine you). So it's best to look it up in your country before considering to take any of such actions.
>
> Regards,
>   Stephan.

Of course, you are implying that anyone from Eclipse will even get substantial income from the donations. Robin has raked in some decent cash from his little shop and hasn't set up a company (as far as I know…) and I doubt anyone will get much further than him.

It's best to work on your game first _then_ worry about making money. If you spend your time worrying about this then you'll most likely end up in flames.

Making a donation pot (if you want to call it that) is probably the best option for you. It's low maintenance and you'll doubtingly be fined by the feds. Although that's assuming that you live in the US, as I'm not sure where you're from.

[Godlord]

@Jungletoe:

> Of course, you are implying that anyone from Eclipse will even get substantial income from the donations. Robin has raked in some decent cash from his little shop and hasn't set up a company (as far as I know…) and I doubt anyone will get much further than him.

It's better to be warned though.

@Jungletoe:

> Making a donation pot (if you want to call it that) is probably the best option for you. It's low maintenance and you'll doubtingly be fined by the feds. Although that's assuming that you live in the US, as I'm not sure where you're from.

The chances are likely to be equal in Europe. The country I live in _does_ care about non-licensed companies/businesses.

Regards,
  Stephan.

[SawQuart]

@S.J.R.:

> It's better to be warned though.

Good point.

> The chances are likely to be equal in Europe. The country I live in _does_ care about non-licensed companies/businesses

Yeah, I understand. Most countries do, and should care, just it's a matter of how deep they'll go in searching for tax evasion.

[Ispan]

Hi,

I still think the best way to do it is via phone, everyone has a phone, its cheap, and if its only micro payments it would work. All you really need to do is get the server to pull info out of a MySQL DB and add something to the clients ingame bank/ingame inventor.

Client Chooses what to buy,
Your phone payment processor sends text,
They reply,
If its correct the bill the phone.

If the money goes then run the MySQL update and update the DB to say that player X has purchased 1 of item Z

Then the server checks the DB every 30 seconds and will take X, 1, Z and delete it out of the DB and send 1 of Z to client X.

Simple and it should work.

[Orunu]

your basically saying we need to set up a company to sell stuff on ebay cuz its tax evasion O.o to make money you dont have to make a company another example your saying a kid needs to set one up to make money from mowing peoples yards….. my point theres no need to set up a company to make money.

-back on topic of post-

depending on how popular your game is depends on the money you make if you were to say make a popular CO Pserver you could make hundreds of dollars a week all depends on how popular it is and how much one player wants to be more powerful then the next

[MrKris]

I have a short answer for this.

Possible, but improbable.

[mrmiguu]

@Orunu:

> your basically saying we need to set up a company to sell stuff on ebay cuz its tax evasion O.o to make money you dont have to make a company another example your saying a kid needs to set one up to make money from mowing peoples yards….. my point theres no need to set up a company to make money.
>
> -back on topic of post-
>
> depending on how popular your game is depends on the money you make if you were to say make a popular CO Pserver you could make hundreds of dollars a week all depends on how popular it is and how much one player wants to be more powerful then the next

Ebay is a company.

You are not.

[Godlord]

@Orunu:

> your basically saying we need to set up a company to sell stuff on ebay cuz its tax evasion O.o to make money you dont have to make a company another example your saying a kid needs to set one up to make money from mowing peoples yards….. my point theres no need to set up a company to make money.

That's not what I am saying, that's what you are making of it. eBay is a service company that provides a way to sell second-hand items you own, but of which you only have a few to sell. At the other hand, there are actually businesses and companies that do sell via eBay, but are registered. This is how the economy works: once you are selling a product with a specific presentation to your audience (i.e. customers), you are participating in the financial world and should have a company and business registered.

Accepting donations has to do with being a foundation, which is a non-profit organisation. The donations have to be legitimated, which enforces company or business registration.

Instead of taking down the advice of someone who knows how the economic model works, please do some research yourself and stop jumping to conclusions.

@HL:

> …

I'd rather have the option to pay via either my bank account or PayPal and not my phone.

Regards,
  Stephan.