No Microtransactions in The Agency

Since Sony Online Entertainment announce it had contracted Live Gamer to handle real money trading services for The Agency, there’s been much speculation over whether it will feature a microtransaction system for items. SOE developers have clarified the matter in a recent interview with Eurogamer.

“I want to make this very clear,” said lead designer Hal Milton. “This is not a microtransaction system within The Agency to allow players to buy weapons, outfits, or operatives to be effective within the game world. That’s something that we’re absolutely not planning on doing.”

The Live Gamer system will be used to create an auction system such as the one in EverQuest II. However, there is still a possibility that “alternate mechanics” may be included in the spy thriller MMO which would allow players to purchase additional operatives in a one time transaction.

“We have some alternate mechanics for operatives that we may support with out-of-game transactions, and we may have the opportunity for players to spin up, at least, a random booster pack that gives them the opportunity to possibly recruit other operatives.”

Director of development Matt Wilson added that the business model for the PC and PS3 title had not been decided yet. “We’re still figuring it out as we go along, looking at what the markets are up to, how is the PlayStation 3 evolving from that standpoint,” he said. “The other thing is Free Realms, another SOE product – it’s launching and it’s going to have a bunch of new business models that they play with, and we’re interested in seeing how those play out before we decide what we’re going to do.”

via Eurogamer