Int. Journal of Business Science and Applied Management / Business-and-Management.org
items by themselves. Item degradation through destroying items or by rendering them useless creates
the possibility of selling replacement items over and over again. In marketing terms, degradation is
closely analogous to contrived durability, as the operator controls exactly when and how the item
ceases to function or exist.
Unlike with material goods, there is no technical reason why virtual items could not last
indefinitely, so the marketer may have to justify why such a mechanism is implemented. Degradation
through usage is easily justified in terms of the background fiction in performance-oriented MMOs
such as World of Warcraft. Items usually break gradually when used in combat. Repairing costs
currency, which can also be harnessed as a revenue stream, as is done by the operator of Entropia
Universe. In online hangouts such as Habbo, item degradation is more difficult to implement in a way
acceptable to users. In these contexts, degrading could perhaps be justified using more mundane
scenarios such as items becoming dirty and requiring washing.
One way of implementing item degradation is to have “charges” in items, that is, setting a limit to
the number of times an item can be used. This is often the case with consumable items. For example, a
player can drink from a magic potion five times. Consumable items can have many purposes for
players in a given game or service. For example, in World of Warcraft, there are many performance-
enhancing consumables. In MapleStory, players can purchase a wide variety of performance-enhancing
and functional consumables, such as a bonus that prevents players from losing experience points when
killed. Time-based degradation is used in Cyworld, a socially oriented online hangout.
Habbo does not use degradation at all. As a result, some users have accumulated massive amounts
of items in the service, and it is not unheard of for older users to give away substantial goods to new
users for free, essentially cannibalising the operator’s sales. On the other hand, very old items that are
no longer available for purchase have become highly valued content among Habbo users. Lack of items
with interesting histories and provenance (Lehdonvirta 2009) is a drawback of services utilising the
degradation model.
In summary, degradation works in the same way as contrived durability, forcing customers to buy
replacement products after a certain time. On the other hand, rational players should factor potential
degradation into their value assessment of a new good, lessening its appeal. Implementing degradation
is thus essentially an optimisation problem between initial sales potential and sustained sales potential,
with game mechanics and background stories being applied to nudge players’ economic reasoning
towards the desired outcome.
5.2 Inconvenient Gameplay Elements
Several free-to-play MMO operators sell user interface (UI) enhancements to generate revenues.
This implies that some gameplay or interface elements have been intentionally designed to be
somewhat inconvenient, at least from the point of view of an advanced user. The enhancements range
from actual virtual items to non-item power-ups and UI upgrades. Some services provide additional
advantages over other players, others merely ease the use of UI. Below, we discuss a few examples of
such implementations.
A “Travian Plus” account in Travian provides users with several UI and performance
enhancements. For example, users can make shortcuts to more easily manage their civilisation. Other
purchasable user interface enhancements include a larger map view, construction queues, information
sorting and statistics. In Special Force, a Korean first-person shooter game, the default colour of the
weapons’ crosshair can be difficult to recognise on some backgrounds. To address this inconvenience,
players can purchase new crosshairs (Oh and Ryu 2007). In MapleStory, there is only limited space
available for storing friends’ contact information. Once the limit is reached, users have to buy more
“friend slots”. MapleStory also sells avatar facial expressions to help players communicate in more
varied ways.
The virtual landscape of many MMO worlds is so large as to make travel between places time-
consuming. In most MMOs, distance is countered by teleportation or other instant means of travel.
These instant travel mechanics can come with a price. In many games, such as World of Warcraft, they
are paid using in-game money. In MapleStory, some travelling requires a currency that must be
purchased with real money.
Gathering “loot” left behind by vanquished enemies is a common mechanic in MMOs. For high-
performing players, it can become a significant inconvenience factor, as it takes time away from
“productive” gameplay. In MapleStory, a pet can be taught to collect loot for the player, but the ability
costs money. Limited storage space for items is a related inconvenience factor that will be discussed
further below.
Operators might also seek to take advantage of the always-on nature of virtual worlds, and the fact
that players have limited time to be online. In MapleStory, users can buy an automated merchant