Micropayments coming to OpenLife
The OpenLife Grid is about to get an in world credits system to allow users to trade items or buy services with a Virtual currency in world. The OpenLife credit system is planned to go live by the end of February, 2009.
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 OpenLife logo for the credits |
Steve Sima, the founder of the OpenLife grid, says that: “…exchangeable credits are a popular request from residents. However with interchangeable credits comes a range of new issues that must be addressed. After a good 6 months of consultaton with Openlife users, we’re pleased to say we’re on track to deliver an in world payments solution in the forum of Openlife Credits before the end of February. This will follow shortly after new fixes and implementations in objects and inventory permissions are rolled out.”
The amount of available credits is indicated by the Gold Star with the ‘C’ in the middle at the top right hand side of R16 Openlife Viewer. KirstenLee’s new r17 OpenLife viewer with realXtend features is planned to be out at the same time as the credits system (read earlier CTN article about OpenLife viewer plans).
All users will be able to buy OpenLife credits. The supported payment systems include initially paypal and common credit cards. The cash-out possibility is reserved only for the region owners. Steve says that this was decided after a careful consideration: “We found the general consensus amongst users is they didn’t want the implementation of credits to affect the goodwill amongst the grid. One of the mechanisms in place to keep the balance will be the exchange of credits for real dollars only being available to region owners.”
OpenLife grid is the biggest OpenSim based grid in operation. Take a look at the CTN article about the growth of the OpenLife userbase.
