Virtual Goods = Real Accounting Issues
Last week’s Game Developer’s Conference put the limelight on the rapidly growing game industry, but it also highlighted a significant pain point - virtual good sales create very real accounting issues for successful virtual worlds and MMORPGs.
The video game industry has been way ahead of the game when it comes to implementing a variety of business models and accepting a variety of billing methods. In this case, necessity has been the mother of invention since many of the industry’s young consumers don’t have access to credit cards. Sulake, the makers of Habbo Hotel, have been particularly innovative in this space. The company accepts 186 different payment methods in 31 countries including credit card, SMS payments, money orders, and prepaid game cards available through major retailers such as Target and Walmart.
Sulake even manages to pass some of the transaction costs to consumers by varying the exchange rate between cash and coins, Habbo’s in-world currency, based on the billing method used and amount of currency purchased. Consumers get as little as 5 coins per dollar for high transaction cost billing methods such as prepaid cards and as much as 6 coins per dollar for low transaction cost methods such as credit cards or ongoing subscriptions.
Now that the industry has figured out how to get money into the system, it’s now faced with the challenge of keeping it there. The industry faces a number of challenges:
* Lack of Parental Consent. If a child fails to get the consent of his or her parent before making a purchase, that parent can have the charge reversed. Although there may not always be sound grounds for reversal, credit card companies often side with parents regardless of circumstances. This not only results in customer service overhead for the virtual world or online game operator, it can result in lost revenue from the sale of limited edition or exhaustible items which cannot be reclaimed.
* Outright Fraud. In many of the major virtual worlds and online games there have been cases of fraud where a user converts cash into in-world credits, uses those credits to purchase a rare item, sells that item for real currency on a sanctioned or unsanctioned aftermarket, and then cancels their original credit card payment. As a result, the user commits a form of “cybertheft” by profiting from virtual goods that the user never paid for. In some cases, the operator can recover the payment, but the credit card dispute process is time-consuming and often biased to the cardholder.
* Stored Value Accounting. For years, airlines have had to keep significant liabilities on their books related to the accumulation of frequent flyer miles. The industry faces a similar problem. Should operators recognize revenue when cash is converted into in-world currency? Should the accumulated balance of all in-world credits by accounted as a liability on the balance sheet? What happens if a user abandons their balance? Should users have the right to claim a cash credit for their account balance at any point in the future? The answers aren’t clear.
As Joshua Jaffe mentions in his TechConfidential.com article, there is no turnkey payment solution that addresses the unique needs of the video game and virtual world industries. Certainly, with the emergence of economic platforms like PlaySpan and TwoFish, we’ll start to see industry-wide platforms and best practices related to payment collection, chargeback risk mitigation, and fraud deterrence.
以下中文部分感谢www.item4u.com的hao友情翻译
在不久前举行的游戏开发者大会上,我们再次感受到了游戏行业的飞速发展,但同时也看到了行业发展过程中面临一些问题和挑战,尤其是虚拟交易。
由于视频游戏行业的商业模型和支付方式的完善,目前,该行业已经走在了整个游戏业的前列。需求是革新的源动力,现在,玩家群体越来越趋向于年轻化,他们中间有很多人还没有达到使用信用卡的资格。为了解决这个问题,Sulake,哈宝旅馆 (Habbo Hotel)的开发商在31个国家开放了186种不同的付费方式,包括信用卡,手机钱包,汇票,预付费游戏卡,玩家可以在各大零售商如Target和Walmart处进行缴费。
Sulake还根据付费方式的不同向玩家收取一定的交易费,这笔费用具体体现在虚拟货币的与现金之间的比率上。例如,对于预付费游戏卡这种高成本付费方式,玩家在购买虚拟货币的时候,采用的比率是5比1,即1美元换5个虚拟货币,而对于信用卡方式或者属于续费性质的玩家来说,将采用6比1的比率,即1美元可以换6个虚拟货币。
尽管如此,对于如何让现金进入虚拟世界,仍然面临着许多挑战:
父母的反对:孩子的购买行为如果没有得到父母的同意,父母可以选择撤消付款。尽管这种撤消行为似乎没什么理由,但信用卡公司往往会站在父母的一边。可以想象,这么一来,对虚拟世界的厂商来说,势必会产生一定的影响。尤其是在处理那些不可回收的昂贵的虚拟道具上。
公开欺诈:公开欺诈行为在许多大型的虚拟世界和网络游戏中都曾出现过。首先,这些人使用信用卡购买虚拟货币,然后用虚拟货币购买稀有的虚拟道具,再卖掉这些道具取得现金,最后,撤回他们之前的信用卡付费行为,并声称自己遭遇“网络偷窃”。对某些案例,厂商也有应对的办法,但解决涉及信用卡的争议通常需要耗费大量时间,而且大多数时候,信用卡公司是倾向于持卡人的。
储值计帐:多年来,航空公司必须通过建立常旅客计划会计来解决常旅客计划所带来的会计问题。游戏行业也面临着类似的问题。当现金被转换为虚拟货币的时候,厂商是否应当承认这也是一项收入呢?所有虚拟货币的帐目累积结余应当作为一项负债计入资产平衡表吗?如果用户放弃结余怎么办?将来,用户是否有权利要求将帐户结余转换为现金?这些问题目前都还没有明确的答案。
正如Joshua Jaffe在TechConfidential.com的文章中提到的,视频游戏和虚拟世界行业没有完整的支付解决方案。当然,随着PlaySpan和TwoFish这类虚拟经济平台的出现,我们将会看到这些平台是如何跨行业运作的,以及诸如帐款代收,退款风险的降低,公开欺诈的防范等问题又是如何得到解决。