Virtual currency

How it works

Virtual currency is virtual money that is used for purchasing and selling virtual goods. Depending on its purpose, a virtual currency affects the game economy balance or is connected to monetization of the app.

Main features:

• Sell any amount of virtual currency or a separate package of currency with a fixed amount.
• Sell hard currency.
• Sell virtual currency and packages of virtual currency for real or virtual money.
• Limit the number of virtual currency packages available for purchase.
• Limit the display time for virtual currency and virtual currency packages in the store.
• Free items.

Options for selling currency

• sell any amount of virtual currency
• sell packages of virtual currency

Sell any amount of virtual currency

Sell packages of virtual currency

Sell the virtual currency in predefined amounts. This feature allows you to sell in-game currencies in packages, for which the price can be lower than if the currency was bought with a custom amount.

Example: For a package, you can define a special price that doesn’t equal the amount of virtual currency in it. For example: 1 virtual coin = 1 USD. 500 virtual coins = 450 USD.

Restrictions:

• You can add only one type of virtual currency to a package.
• You can create a virtual currency package without specifying its price in real or virtual currency. If such an item is displayed in the store, it will be available to users for free.
• The amount of virtual currency can be specified only as the integer value.

Currency delivery

• Directly to Xsolla Inventory (default method). Before the delivery, the package of virtual currency unpacks, and the currency from the package is granted to the player inventory.
• To PlayFab if you have configured the integration.

Hard currency

Hard currency is a currency that is linked to the platform of purchase and can be purchased only for real money.

Restrictions:

• You can give currency a status of hard only during the first setup.
• You can sell packages of virtual currency with hard virtual currency only for real money.

To store hard currency separately on different platforms:

• Set the Hard virtual currency toggle to On.

• When calling the API endpoints for inventory management, pass the string with the platform of purchase to the platform field.

Example

"platform": “playstation_network”

Limiting number of virtual currency packages available for purchase

You can limit the purchase of virtual currency packages. For example, you can limit:

• the number of virtual currency packages per user
• welcome virtual currency packages that are only available for purchase once

If the user has reached the specified limit, the virtual currency package will not be displayed in the catalog.

You can display the maximum available number of packages and the remaining number of packages that is available to the user.

To set a purchase limit when creating a virtual currency package in Publisher Account, switch the Limit number of times one user can buy package toggle to On and specify the number of times the package can be bought.

You can use the methods of the Catalog subsection from the Virtual Items & Currency method group to get information about virtual currency packages.

In the response, you will receive the following information in addition to information about the virtual currency package:

• the maximum number of virtual currency packages a user can buy
• the remaining number of virtual currency packages available for the user to purchase

You can read more about how to set up or update restrictions in the Limits for user instructions.

{
  "items": [
    {
      "sku": "vc_package_1",
      "name": "VC Name first package",
      "groups": [],
      "attributes": [],
      "type": "bundle",
      "description": "VC Short Package Description",
      "image_url": "http://vc_package_image.png",
      "is_free": false,
      "price": {
        "amount": "2.0000",
        "amount_without_discount": "2.0000",
        "currency": "USD"
      },
      "bundle_type": "virtual_currency_package",
      "content": [
        {
          "description": "Big Rocket - short description",
          "image_url": "https://popmedia.blob.core.windows.net/popyourself/male/outfit/male_armor_white_a-01.png",
          "sku": "big_rocket",
          "name": "Big Rocket",
          "type": "virtual_currency",
          "quantity": 100,
          "inventory_options": {
            "consumable": {
              "usages_count": 1
            },
            "expiration_period": null
          }
        }
      ],
      "virtual_prices": [],
      "limits": {
        "per_user": {
          "total": 5,
          "available": 5
          },
        "per_item": null
       },
      "can_be_bought": true
    },
    {
      "sku": "vc_package_3",
      "name": "VC Name third package",
      "groups": [],
      "attributes": [],
      "type": "bundle",
      "description": "VC Short Package Description",
      "image_url": "http://vc_package_image.png",
      "is_free": false,
      "price": {
        "amount": "4.0000",
        "amount_without_discount": "4.0000",
        "currency": "USD"
      },
      "bundle_type": "virtual_currency_package",
      "content": [
        {
          "description": "description",
          "image_url": "http://image.png",
          "sku": "shotgun_raider",
          "name": "SHOTGUN FOR TRUE RAIDERS",
          "type": "virtual_currency",
          "quantity": 200,
          "inventory_options": {
            "consumable": {
              "usages_count": 1
            },
            "expiration_period": null
          }
        }
      ],
      "virtual_prices": [],
      "limits": {
        "per_user": {
          "total": 5,
          "available": 5
          },
        "per_item": null
       },
      "can_be_bought": true
    }
  ]
}

Limiting the display time for virtual currency and virtual currency packages in the store

• maintain the relevance of the catalog at a given time, for example, during holiday sales
• create a virtual currency and virtual currency packages in advance without displaying it in the catalog
• motivate users to buy virtual currency and virtual currency packages by displaying a timer next to the item

"periods": [
      {
        "date_from": "2022-06-10T14:00:00+03:00",
        "date_until": "2022-06-30T14:00:00+03:00"
      },
       {
        "date_from": "2022-07-10T14:00:00+03:00",
        "date_until": "2022-07-30T14:00:00+03:00"
      },
       {
        "date_from": "2022-08-10T14:00:00+03:00",
        "date_until": "2022-08-30T14:00:00+03:00"
      }
]

"periods": [
      {
        "date_from": "2022-06-10T14:00:00+03:00",
        "date_until": "2022-06-30T14:00:00+03:00"
      },
       {
        "date_from": "2022-07-10T14:00:00+03:00",
        "date_until": "2022-07-30T14:00:00+03:00"
      },
       {
        "date_from": "2022-08-10T14:00:00+03:00",
        "date_until": "2022-08-30T14:00:00+03:00"
      }
]

Who can use it

For partners who want to set up game economy or monetization by adding virtual currency to the game and selling virtual items for it.

How to get it

Set up virtual currency

• use Publisher Account
• use API calls

Set up virtual currency in Publisher Account

Set up virtual currency via API calls