Corporate Currencies

Well, my unannounced New Year's hiatus is over. I've relocated to my old college town to finish up a degree, and am feeling pretty glad to finally be getting this over with.

A while back, I saw an article on Kotaku about yet another corporate currency, this time Sony's Crysta. Many companies have switched to this model of artificial currencies that you first buy with your real money, and then later spend on games. I believe that by removing real currency one step from your actual purchases, they hope that you are distanced from what you're paying and they can sell you more stuff at a more expensive price.

In my opinion, this is never a good thing for the consumer, and never done with the consumer's interest in mind. I would choose to not buy a game rather than be forced to go through the process of dealing with one of these bullshit corporate currencies.

My great grandfather was a coal miner in the Appalachian Mountains. He grew up working in the coal camps, with his family living in company housing. His pay came in company script, which was not real currency, and could only be spent in the company store. Naturally, the company store was making a profit by price gouging, and this whole twisted system was designed to keep the workers basically as slaves.

An extreme example, yes, but this to me is a cautionary tale of how anytime we willingly embrace the idea of a corporate currency, or the idea that a corporation has the regular peoples' interests at heart, we are toying with fire.

What can we as consumers do, though? I'm not a huge console gamer, as I've said before. As a result, I don't know how much of a stranglehold Microsoft has on you with the 360. I do know that if I have to buy Microsoft Points in order to fully enjoy the 360, I never will purchase one.

What do you think? Do you use corporate currencies regularly? What is your experience with the whole situation?