14 DAY TRIAL // Micro-transactions will not be available in The Agency, the spy-themed MMO developed by Sony Online Entertainment that should be out by the end of the year. Rumors regarding such a system were sparked by the fact that SOE and Live Gamer entered into an agreement last month regarding real money trading services, that were to be provided by Live Gamer for SOE managed games.
Designer Hal Milton wanted to make things clear by saying that "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."
However, this does not mean that the Live Gamer deal is not important to the upcoming MMO. The people at Sony are trying to eliminate the illegal gold farming and subsequent gold selling that takes place on a massive scale in MMOs like World of Warcraft. So, they decided to create an auction system for The Agency.
The auction concept will allow people to trade and sell all matter of goods, from currency to NPCs available in the game. This will make players much less likely to give away details of their account that might lead to hacking, while it will also make sure that all transactions are sanctioned by game overseers.
Game designer Hal Milton also thinks there's a possibility to sell players booster packs that might contain some in-game items and powers, but whether such packs will be available will only be decided after Sony makes up its mind regarding the business model it wants to use for The Agency. The game, which will be released on both the PC and the PlayStation 3, might ditch the subscription model that is the staple of MMO design these days, in favor of a more flexible model that might allow some of the players to play for free.