Life Beyond's Economy: Real Money -> In-Game Currency -> Items, And Vice Versa

Back when it was just known as "Project C," the developers of Life Beyond said that they intended for the game to "change how people perceive open world online games" and that they wanted "commerce, crafting, economic decisions and in-game services to all be ultimately run by players." Now we know a little bit more about how that economy will work, and it's likely to be controversial.

A post on Reddit shared a conversation (reposted below) with Darewise Entertainment from the Life Beyond Discord. The Darewise team member said that there "won't be any shop," but that players can "buy the in-game currency with IRL money" and that "everything will be available through in-game money, equipment, tools, weapons, cosmetics." We'll leave that as an exercise for the reader to figure out, though the player asking the questions seemed to sum it up nicely:

"So theoretically you could go in with a big wallet and buy top tier equipment/not resources from the get go?"

To which Darewise responded, "Yes." Darewise also said that the transactions will work in the other direction -- namely, that you players will be able to "convert" in-game money to IRL money, so you could reason that the entire enterprise might be good for players who devote time to playing the game without spending. They can accumulate items, sell them for in-game currency, and then convert that currency to IRL money -- with Darewise taking a cut, most likely. It's not an entirely original approach -- Entropia Universe comes to mind -- but it's something we haven't seen from a new game for quite a while.

It should be noted that the player's messages were edited, so it's just possible that their questions were edited after the fact to make things look a certain way. However, even standing alone, Darewise's answers connect the dots in a way that some gamers might take issue with.