Idea validation : Platform for trading game account
Problem : There are many games I used to play, especially mobile games. Now I don't play them anymore.
Some of them have decent in game characters and might be worth for selling them.
I believe there might be people like me want to sell inactive account too.
I did some research on this and found out that mostly people will often trading in social platform like Facebook group.
The most common problem I often seen is it is lack of trust. Meaning there is a high chance of cheating will happen.
For example, the buyer might not pay to the seller when the game account was transferred or Seller not transfer an account to the seller after he/she already paid.
This leads to an opportunity for me as the middleman to manage the trust for both party; buyer and seller. To ensure that both of them are getting what they want; money and account. The way to monetize is to get the commission for each trading.
What do you think about this idea ? Feel free to feedback me.
Thanks
I think you have a bigger problem since that goes directly against the TOS of many big publishers and developers...
I do think you should get better informed about the legal implications...
I have used Player Auctions in the past, they work very well and are trustworthy. Is that something you were thinking about?
I haven't seen this one yet. They looks really nice.
And yes, this is what I am thinking about.
Unlike PlayerUp that I was tried selling my game account recently.
I'm not quite satisfied with their trading process.
They have middleman feature but in the end it seems like I still have to contact with the buyer directly. Which I personally think that this is not much a 'Middleman'.
In addition, some game requires a specific method to transfer an account. They did not provide this information. Both buyer/seller have to find out how to do that.
Did you check how that works with the Terms of Condition in these games?
In some Terms of Conditions, the games explicitly state that selling accounts is against the terms.
Just wanted to raise your awareness on this
Thanks for feedback.
Yes, this is possible.
Initially, what I think for now is to let them aware the risk of this.
Go for it
The future is Blockchain, trustless no middleman exchange of digital goods
There are sites that already do similar stuff, but I've seen them more specialized for a particular game. Back in the day I actually used one to sell my WoW account, and also know of sites that sell in-game currency for other games, so there's certainly a market for it.
One thing to keep in mind is that the sale of goods within the game is expressly prohibited by most games's TOS. This means that at any point they can probably get you shut down, and can ban accounts that are linked to the service. I personally wouldn't want to deal with the headache if a number of my users accounts were banned after being linked back to my service. I'd wager that the majority of sites like this probably operate in a difficult to go after jurisdictions, which is how they're able to operate for so long.
Yeah.. TOS is the biggest problem.
I also think that this idea might also help game publishers to have active players in their games.
Which is also possible that these new players (from traded accounts) might support them in game purchasing; for example, loot boxes or Gacha in the future too.