Live Gamer Exchange to Power RMT in The Agency and Free Realms

SEATTLE, WA – May 14, 2008 – Live Gamer, the premier operator of a publisher-supported marketplace for real money trading of virtual items, has announced it has entered into an agreement with Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) to offer real money trading (RMT) in the upcoming titles published by SOE — The Agency™ and Free Realms™. The two companies are leading the evolution of the gaming industry into transaction-based business models that open emergent game play styles for gamers and opportunities for publishers.

Live Gamer’s service, called Live Gamer Exchange™, will provide the SOE gaming community within these new games with a trusted way to conduct real-money transactions. Earlier this year, Live Gamer incorporated SOE’s proven Station Exchange technology, the first publisher-developed and sanctioned RMT marketplace, into its own e-commerce platform. The Live Gamer Exchange is currently operating within EverQuest® II, SOE’s popular MMORPG (www.livegamer.com)

The next genre of SOE MMOGs to incorporate the Live Gamer Exchange will include:

* The Agency, a fast-paced online action shooter, will let players experience the life of an elite espionage agent with a “you are what you wear” level of customization. As they travel to exotic locales, infiltrate enemy organizations, and seek global domination for their own agency, gamers will be able to customize their characters through attire, weaponry, gadgets, vehicles, gear and aliases that tailor their game play.* Free Realms, a whimsical fantasy adventure game targeted toward families, will be free to play and offer a catalog of items made by and for players to customize their avatars as much as they wish. The Live Gamer Exchange will provide a new and efficient mechanism for trading these items within the game.

Said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, “We are actively exploring free-to-play and other revenue models, and always looking for new ways to engage and entertain gamers. Live Gamer is a proven partner that protects and supports our gamers who participate in RMT. We trust them to handle this area of the business for us so that we can focus on creating and growing our games.”

“SOE pioneered the MMO genre and continues to evolve it by offering new game play experiences, revenue models and expanded demographic appeal. Live Gamer is proud to be a key part of the movement toward transaction-based game play,” said Live Gamer co-founder and president, Andrew Schneider. “We’re now building on the launch of the Live Gamer Exchange with EverQuest II, and expanding our relationship with SOE to power additional games including these two titles for which the idea of RMT has been built in from the very early stages of design.”

SOE's Agency, Free Realms To Support Real Money Trading

• by AJ Glasser
• January 25, 2010 09:42 AM PST

Micro-transactions are making a bigger impact in the major massively multiplayer online market. PoxNora, Free Realms, EverQuest, and EverQuest II are among the titles that will be affected by this new deal.

Sony Online Entertainment and microtransaction service provider Live Gamer announced a service deal this morning that would expand Live Gamer’s real money trading market in PoxNora, Free Realms, EverQuest, and EverQuest II.

The real money trading market is called “Elements.” The software powers microtransactions within games in a way that streamlines a lot of the fuss on both the technical side and the user side of massively multiplayer online games.

If just now you’re going “So what?” consider the fact that three years ago, the only free-to-play MMO anybody had ever heard of was Maple story. Microtransaction models have grown since then, slowly trickling into Western MMOs as more developers consider ditching their subscription-based models to get in on some of the (microtrans)action that Facebook games enjoy (see GamePro issue #258, “The Rise of Facebook Gaming”).

Speaking to GamePro, Live Gamer CEO Mitch Davis broke down the benefits of the deal to users and explained the evolution of the microtransaction model. “This is a business model that’s been popular in Japan and Korean,” he said. “Consoles aren’t as big in Asia, so online games evolved to microtransactions faster [than Western MMOs].”

Thanks to SOE’s partnership, Live Gamer is now powering 125 games globally. Davis said he expects that number to climb to 200 in North America alone before 2010 is out.

“When you look [at a game] like Free Realms, you know it’s good – it’s robust,” Davis said. “Elements enhances that, it provides a very robust microtransaction service for the user.”

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Sony Online Entertainment expands microtransaction service into EverQuest II, other MMOs