Paypal really sucks. Really, really sucks. High fees, shady business tactics, overall they are just the worst. I understand you use them because they are popular, but I refuse to use them. I also don't entirely feel safe entering my CC info into a random website, despite how big and how old the website is. Zeevex is a great option, I can even pay by cash simply by going to any GameStop.

But, I wish to propose another billing method: bitcoin! Bitcoin is a relatively new cryptocurrency, completely digital and decentralized. Coins are traded back and forth, and have value which fluctuates based on supply and demand.

You don't have to charge a static amount of bitcoins, you can charge 10USD per month, and then calculate how many bitcoins that is at the time of sale. If you then sell the coins to USD immediately, there is 0 risk for you to lose money using the currency. Worried that it is difficult to implement? No problem, MtGox (the largest Bitcoin <-> Currency exchange) has a merchant API specifically for this purpose.
Another benefit of it is free publicity. Bitcoin users love trying out new bitcoin related things. A game that accepts bitcoin gets a ton of free traffic from bitcoin forums and wikis.

As for what this offers the players, you can play for VERY CHEAP to PRACTICALLY FREE by using your GPU when you are not playing games to do what is called "mining", which generates bitcoins for free. The only cost is the cost of electricity where you live to run your GPU. If you have a good GPU (higher end AMD cards only, sorry nvidia), then it is completely worth it to mine.

I've been mining and developing products for bitcoin for over 2 years now. If you have any questions, feel free to ask! :)

Paypal is shady?? hmmm used them for over 6 yrs now, never any problems. Bitcoin? never tried it dont need to. Plus i am online at 3 different sites and none accept bitcoin so what can i say. and yea i what to give anyone but my self acces to any part of my system, dont think so dude

'If you have any questions, feel free to ask! :)'

Sure, I'll bite.

How much do you make working for the marketing company that Bitcoin has employed to drum up business for itself? I mean, you should be raking it for all your hard work creating bogus free accounts and posting a script already prewritten by someone with a degree in liberal arts during their work break at McDonald's.

Minen, you don't need to take my word for it, just Google some PayPal horror stories! They use incredibly shady business tactics. They will shut down business accounts that get large amounts of income rapidly (such as a new game company that sells say 100k products in a week), and keep them locked for months before releasing the money. During this time they are making tons of money off of interest. This is just one of the many, many ways that PayPal essentially scams people.

@Death Fluffy, I understand the skepticism, but I can absolutely assure you that I am not a part of any marketing company. Wanna know how? Bitcoin isn't a company. There is no owner, there is no revenue. It is a completely open source project, and people who own bitcoins literally *own* them, as they are stored on your computer, not in some centralized server. Who would pay me to go around spamming forums? The developers of Bitcoin, which make no money off of it? Sure, I could be a marketing person for MtGox (a bitcoin exchange, which is a company), but you do not need to use MtGox for your merchant and exchange needs. It's just convenience. You can install bitcoind on your own servers and handle all of the transaction processing yourself without paying anyone a dime. It's part of the neat nature of Bitcoin.

Again, feel free to ask questions, but please do not resort to hostile or argumentative posts. I can understand if you do not like the idea of Bitcoin, but you should at least check it out before assuming the worst. :)

I also have a question:
If the cost of electricity spent mining was greater than the output in bitcoins back before the bubble burst and bitcoins cost $26 each, how the fuck is it "completely worth it to mine" today, when a bitcoin is worth $5?

A valid question, genka! It entirely depends on your cost of electricity. There are several calcs you can use to determine this.

To give you some sample values, let's say you pay $0.08 per kWh of electricity, which is the average in the USA. Let's also assume your computer has a single AMD Radeon HD 6870. The 6870 outputs about 300mhash/s and consumes 150W. Add in, let's say 50W for the rest of the system while it is powered, for a combined 200W. Let's say the PSU is 80% efficient, meaning it takes 240W to power the rig. This gives us (time frame = 1 month):

Power cost per time frame: 14.03 USD
Revenue per time frame: 28.41 USD
... less power costs: 14.39 USD

Which essentially means your computer would completely pay for Vendetta when you are not using it. It's obviously not ideal, as there is a lot of overhead in the above setup. I personally mine at $0.05/kWh, have many GPUs in a single PC, and this makes it significantly more profitable. If you pay, say, $0.15/kWh, you are correct that it is unprofitable. However, at $26 per bitcoin, it was completely profitable even if electricity cost $0.25/kWh.

Another thing you have to take into account is difficulty. At $26/BTC (in reality, it peaked at $32, though), there were more people mining. Bitcoin network increases the difficulty the more people mine, which means it becomes harder to find bitcoins. Now that the bubble has popped, there are less people mining, which means you get more bitcoins for the same amount of work.

Okay, but how much does it cost to drink away the pain of knowing that you are a worthless husk of a human being, living in a sauna full of steaming tears and melting solder?

I live in the north, where it is cold most of the year. I simply vent the outside air through some humidity control contraption I built, along with several filters, then run it over all of my mining rigs, then output it directly into my apartment. It heats my apartment for free, as a bonus, for 6 months out of the year :).

I do not see how that makes me a worthless hunk of a human being, merely because I mine Bitcoins. It isn't like it's my main source of income. I also do not, or rather rarely drink. I prefer less harmful and funner drugs.

Do you buy your "funner drugs" with monopoly money too? Or does your dealer prefer real money?

As far as being a worthless husk, what else would you call someone who poured his heart and soul into a hopeless hipster project and now wanders the internet begging people to accept his digital equivalent of a magic card collection in exchange for goods and services?

I also don't entirely feel safe entering my CC info into a random website, despite how big and how old the website is.

a) Vendetta Online has never been hacked

b) Most hackers use targets of opportunity

c) Your proposal would likely make VO less secure, if anything. It's also highly suspect that you would post something like this here rather than email the devs directly.

@genka, my apologies, I just assumed you were calling me a hunk. How arrogant of me! :) You appear to just be another anti-Bitcoin troll, so I'll stop trying to debate with you. If you wish to stop being so argumentative and childish, I would be happy to continue.

@Phaserlight, how would it make VO less secure? If VO uses MtGox as a merchant API, then there is absolutely no risk, as MtGox handles everything. Hackers could find the MtGox IPN, but as long as it's well hidden and secured, then they wouldn't. It's the same as the PayPal IPN that I'm sure VO already uses. Why is me posting here suspect? I thought this was a suggestion, and this is the suggestions forum :P. If you think I am merely trying to generate interest for Bitcoin, my apologies. That was not my intention. I did not think of emailing the devs.

I did not say it would, I said that it likely would. There is nothing in your initial post indicating that you actually played the game, which adds to the overall impression that this thread started off as an advertisement. It's as if you walked on to an open field and started shouting business proposals at the top of your lungs, rather than taking the elevator to the top suite of the building across the way marked "Headquarters" and asking for an interview. I'll leave weighing the risks to the experts, but I wonder who you are trying to convince.

I am still playing the demo 8 hours. I will probably end up subbing for at least a month, I do like the game. But I didn't really see the need to say that, as it is irrelevant to the suggestion of bitcoin payment. I am merely trying to convince the developers to accept it. I do not care if players use bitcoin. It doesn't affect my gameplay nearly as much as if I manage to convince the developers. My statements towards players in OP was because I knew there would be controversy, there would be questions, etc. I want to be as helpful as possible. :)

I have a question! Did you read the Rules of Conduct (ROC) on the left margin?

"Furthermore, you may not:

...

Advertise products or websites that are not related to Vendetta Online or other Guild Software
products."

Your first post is undeniably an ad for a product. Please contact the developers if you would like to discuss it further. http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/support

This is most certainly not advertising a product. It is asking the developers of the game to accept another form of payment. I am not affiliated with MtGox in ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM. I obviously cannot prove this, but it appears everyone thinks I am lying. I do not care if you use MtGox or not. I just want to pay for VO using Bitcoins, and MtGox is the fastest way for the developers to do this.

Why is everyone on this forum so hostile? I do not think I have gotten a single positive response in this entire thread, even though I myself have tried to remain completely non-argumentative. It is quite depressing :(.

I think you generated suspicion with the over-the-top anti-PayPal hyperbole, the marketing-speak, and the impression of a hard-sell. One wonders if you will benefit through your "products" or speculation. I'm not opposed to Bitcoin, though I wonder if it might be too volatile for Vendetta.

I did enjoy your responses to genka.

can you lock this Whistler? I think he knows its against the ROC, but doesnt give a shit thanks

I did not think my anti-PayPal hyperbole was a hyperbole, or over-the-top. I merely wanted to establish why it is good to have many alternate payment options, as most people are perfectly fine with supporting such a terrible company (or rather, they are fine with remaining ignorant to who they are supporting). Being anti-PayPal doesn't automatically mean you have financial reason to do so. Just Google some PayPal horror stories as I said earlier, you will see what I mean. My products are bitcoin related but have no relation to VO or MtGox in any way. There are some gambling sites, an MMO, etc, but none of them could possibly profit off of VO -- how would they? As for my speculation, VO accepting bitcoin would hardly profit me that way. I do own a considerable amount of bitcoins, but if VO started accepting BTC, the value of my coins would not even go up enough to cover a single byte of this posts time, let alone the entire post. My goal is only to get VO to accept BTC so that I, and others, can pay them in BTC. As for the "marketing speak", I was merely trying to lay out my points as to why Bitcoin is good for both VO and for the players as simply and quickly as possible. I don't want to waste peoples time.

As for the volatility, that is why I linked to the bitcoin wiki (why did you remove a link to a developer wiki? could you tell me how that is spam?) which shows off a merchant API. VO would present an amount of BTC to the end user that at *that exact moment* is equal to $10. The user then sends that amount to the address, which goes to VO's MtGox account. MtGox tell's VO that it was received, then VO credits the users account, and immediately sells the BTC for the current exchange rate. This can all be automated via APIs, and doesn't take much more than an hour or two to implement. VO will always get the $10 per month, there is no volatility unless bitcoins are held instead of sold immediately (which is up to VO to decide).

@Minen, I know that it is not against the ROC because I am not advertising anything. The developers are free to use anything they wish, they can skip MtGox completely and implement their own APIs against bitcoind themselves, and MtGox will not see a dime of their money. If you had read the thread, you would know that...

From ROC

Furthermore, you may not:

•Advertise products or websites that are not related to Vendetta Online or other Guild Software products.

lol YOU are doing that wether you say or not

It is related to VO, Minen. I am asking the developers to accept it as a currency. If I had came here and just posted about bitcoin for no purpose other than posting about bitcoin, that'd be spamming. But I am asking the developers to accept the currency in exchange for playtime. I am making a suggestion involving the currency. It is related to VO as such. It is not advertising.

Let me try to make an analogy you might get. If someone came here, in the suggestions forum, and posted a topic asking for the game to be ported to the iPad, would that be spamming the forums for Apple? The answer is clearly no.