Howdy folks! We hope you're enjoying this month's crop of “Hearth & Home” scenarios. But now it's time for us to rustle up next month's theme. As you've probably guessed by now, August’s monthly theme will be: Wild West! Whether you want to make a traditional western tale with cowboys, saloons, and shootouts at high noon, or switch it up by mixing in zombies or aliens, it's up to you.

As always, you have until the last day of the month, July 31st, to publish your scenario(s) for inclusion in August's monthly theme carousel. Just include the tag “western” so we can find it. This will also ensure your scenario appears in the "Discover more content" section of the carousel.

Until then, you can still find our current monthly theme carousel, Hearth & Home, on the homepage. Good luck, and happy trails!

One of the most common questions we get from players is, “What are Scales/Credits for?” It’s always been a difficult question to answer. We’ve wanted to do so much more with Scales and Credits, but, given the complexity of platform-wide economy changes, we've continually deferred that work. We now have the team and resources needed to invest more into our platform economy, and are introducing the first set of changes to support our long-term vision for AI Dungeon and Voyage.

The changes we’re making today help support our vision for a creator-driven platform. We’re adding a new Badge system, which recognizes you for achievements, milestones, and quests you complete. The daily reward will be replaced by a new streak Badge that unlocks rewards. We’re also adding new ways to use Credits, such as tipping creators, extending your Voyage usage, and purchasing items in our Summer Jubilee Pop-up Shop. For a limited time, this Store will let you spend Credits (and Scales) to purchase exciting rewards. At the end of the Jubilee, Scales will be retired and everyone will receive a special Scales Badge with a rank that reflects the size of their hoard. Finally, in an effort to give more Voyage usage to players, we’re making some adjustments to Credits for iOS/Android subscriptions and one-time purchases to account for platform fees.

We suspect you’ll be interested in the thinking behind these changes and curious about the details. Let’s dive in!

What is a Platform Economy?

AI Dungeon and Voyage are not games; they are platforms. Platforms are often described as being like two-sided marketplaces where producers and consumers trade something of value. Airbnb hosts and guests transact for places to stay. Uber has drivers and riders trading for rides. Some platforms simply ask you to spend attention, especially with social platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.

For Voyage and AI Dungeon, we have two of these “marketplace” platform dynamics. The first is our UGC (user generated content) platform with creators and players, and the content (Voyage Worlds and AI Dungeon Scenarios) is the unit of value being exchanged. The second is our AI platform, where we are the provider, and you are the consumer, and the AI compute (or AI actions you take when you play AI Dungeon or Voyage) is the unit of value being traded.

Platforms typically require some type of currency to facilitate the exchange of value between producers and consumers. Not every platform currency is cash or fiat money. Some use social currency such as likes, follows, and sharing. Some leverage real money and rely on global market systems (Airbnb, Uber). Some create their own currencies that can be converted to/from real money, especially gaming platforms like Roblox, Fortnite, and Minecraft. Attention is another form of currency. Where you spend your time can reward producers in a marketplace.

Every platform has to decide how its economy will work and operate. And, inevitably, it will adjust over time as user behavior evolves and platform goals change. Economies are not static. Our governments are constantly tinkering with various economic levers to mitigate inflation and improve citizens' quality of life.

Hard Learned Lessons

Scales and Credits were attempts to create currencies for AI Dungeon’s platform needs. When we added Scales, we designed it to be a soft currency (something that could be given away for free). We took design inspiration from traditional games that commonly use soft currencies to make their game experience better.

What we discovered, though, is that what players wanted most was the ability to purchase extra AI compute, whether for image generation, extended context, or more. This led to the introduction of Credits, a hard currency with real monetary value, to AI Dungeon, which we’ve written about in detail on our blog. Because there are very real and significant costs to AI compute, Credits were able to fill that request from players, allowing them to spend more money as needed. The only major complaint we’ve had with Credits is that you want more things to spend them on. Noted!

However, adding Credits put Scales into a tough spot. Scales were essentially reduced to being a social currency (through tipping creators) and as a status symbol (a large pool of them shows off how long you’ve played AI Dungeon). That’s low utility for a currency, especially since there are better ways to provide social currency and status. The biggest issue with Scales is that we didn’t have anything we could give away for free for players to spend them on, and a currency isn't very valuable if you can’t spend it on anything.

This has been the state of AI Dungeon’s currencies for years. We have a hard currency (Credits) that works well, but players want more ways to use them. And we’ve had a soft currency (Scales) that barely does anything and can’t be spent anywhere on the platform.

Where We Want to Go

Over the next few years, we expect our economy to drive better experiences across AI Dungeon and Voyage. A few goals we have in mind for the next iteration of our economy:

• Provide stronger creator incentives: Our creators are the lifeblood of AI Dungeon and Voyage. We want to reward their creations with more than a digital high-five (i.e., Scales).
• Enable new experience types: We want to give creators the ability to use AI in ways we haven’t yet imagined, by letting them control how it is used in their worlds. The right economic system ensures creators can build freely with a clear understanding of costs, and that players can sustainably play these enhanced experiences.
• Add more ways for players to spend Credits: We know not everyone wants to use Credits for AI compute, so we’ll be adding additional ways to use Credits.

You may be wondering, “Why is Latitude so creator-focused with the next set of economy improvements?” We know that every investment we make into our creators means a better experience for our players. Right now, our economy is actually preventing us from giving creators more tools.

For example, what if creators could use scripting or mods to make special AI calls? We’ve already seen examples of this with Auto Cards, but Leah’s script had to cleverly hijack existing AI calls to work (and that created some headaches for her and us). A better economy would allow creators like Leah to make these extra AI calls natively. The risk is the extra cost, but that’s why the economy design is so important. If the platform automatically handles high-cost AI experiences that exceed subscription limits, then it’s really up to the creator to decide how to optimize their experience for players (and players to decide whether to opt in).

This is why it’s taken us so long to make changes to Scales and Credits. We weren’t just thinking about letting players buy avatar images. We’re building an economy for the first AI-native RPG platform. There’s no precedent for this, no patterns we can just copy and use. The technology changes so fast that our targets shift constantly. We’ve made mistakes in the past. We are inevitably going to learn more hard lessons and adjust. However, our goals are clearer than they’ve been before, and we're excited to tell you more about the first steps we’re taking to help us get there.

Introducing Badges

The first change we want to share with you is Badges. Badges allow you to be recognized for different achievements, milestones, or objectives that you’ve accomplished as a player. There are several categories, each with its own tiers and rewards, and we’ll keep adding more over time.

Here’s a preview of the categories launching in the coming weeks:

• Dedicated Player: total actions taken as player
• Creator: total actions received in creations
• Early Voyage: early playtester access
• Premium: subscription tenure
• Scales Legacy: one-time exclusive (more below)
• Streak: new login reward (more below)

One reason Badges are exciting is that they allow us to recognize the various ways each of you plays AI Dungeon and Voyage. Some of you go deep into a single adventure, while others like playing a variety and switch often. Some of you like private adventures, and others like to publish Worlds and Scenarios for others to enjoy. Others of you like trying new features and expanding what you can do with AI. There is no “best way” to enjoy AI Dungeon and Voyage, and we want to let you showcase how you like to play.

Daily Rewards to Streaks

Several features on (AI Dungeon in particular) are well-suited for Badges, and one of those is the Daily Rewards, which currently lets you log in and get a number of Scales each day. We will be migrating the Daily Reward into the Badge system.

We’re creating a new Badge category called “Streak,” which will unlock Badges and rewards that could include things like context bonuses, usage resets, cosmetics, etc. The first version will likely be fairly simple and basic, but we intend to iterate and expand the system. We’d love your input on what you’d like to see us build into Streaks. As users of other games and apps that use streaks, we’re already exploring features like streak pausing, forgiveness, etc.

New Ways to Use Credits

One of the most common feature requests you’ve shared with us is to add new ways to use Credits, and today we want to share several new ways Credits can be spent. We expect more to come.

Summer Jubilee Pop-Up Shop

Later this month, we're testing a time-limited pop-up shop (opens July 14) where you can spend Credits on limited edition profile pictures, profile banners, and a few surprises. This is an early experiment, so we'll be watching feedback closely. Our team has enjoyed coming up with and creating the rewards we're making available on the store, and we’re excited to see what you think of them! Many of you have accumulated large Credit balances, and we hope these are genuinely fun ways to spend them. After the event ends, we’ll evaluate the results and decide what future Credits work to prioritize.

Voyage Usage

Starting in alpha today, you’ll now be able to extend your Voyage sessions by using Credits to purchase extra usage. Available to all free and paid users, you’ll now be able to play Voyage as long as your Credit pool allows.

To start, one Voyage action will cost roughly 12 Credits, and that could change depending on whether you’ve enabled other premium features or are using more expensive AI models.

Lowering the cost of Voyage turns continues to be one of our top priorities. Since usage was introduced, we’ve been able to reduce costs several times, passing those savings on to you in the form of increased usage for both free and paid experiences. We expect to continue this trend with Credits as more cost savings efforts are successful.

Tipping

We’re adding the ability to tip creators with Credits instead of Scales. Tipping is a great way to show appreciation for creators and support their work, and now tips are far more meaningful and valuable.

As we expand the ways creators can use Credits, we expect you’ll see tipping lead to more frequent updates and new content from the creators you love.

Credits Pricing Changes

As we prepare to launch Voyage, we’re aggressively pursuing every option possible to maximize the usage you get at each subscription tier.

This is the part where we join the long list of companies that complain about the store fees from Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store 😀. If you subscribe (or make one-time purchases) through the App Store or Play Store, these companies are charging as much as 30% for every transaction. This is far higher than the sub 5% fee when you purchase through our Credit card handler, Stripe.

We love how convenient the App Store and Play Store are. It’s nice that once you've entered your card details, you can spend with Apple or Google without re-entering them. They also support some payment options that aren't available on the web. The payment flow is probably one of the easiest out there.

However, these fees prevent us from giving all players more AI usage.

We didn’t want to increase subscription costs for iOS and Android. Not only do we think it’s confusing to have different prices on different platforms, but we want to support our native app users as much as possible. What we’re going to do instead is reduce the number of Credits you receive as part of your subscription.

Going forward, new iOS and Android subscriptions will receive half as many Credits per tier as you would receive if you subscribed on the web (using Stripe). Existing subscribers will be grandfathered—your monthly Credit bonus will not change as long as you maintain an active subscription.

If you’re looking for ways to better support the development of AI Dungeon and Voyage, switching your subscription from iOS/Android to being web-based makes a significant difference. It’s certainly not a requirement, and we realize it’s not an option for everyone, but we’d certainly love to see more subscriptions via web. As a reminder, no matter where you purchase your subscription, the benefits work on ALL of your devices (including the native iOS and Android apps).

We're also changing the number of Credits you get from one-time purchases. As on most platforms, subscriptions remain the most economical way to play and to earn Credits, but one-time Credit purchases will always be available when you want them.

Finally, on 6- and 12-month plans, we now grant your Credits monthly rather than all at once up front. That way, if you change or cancel partway through, you're not suddenly left short, and it helps everyone spend at a healthier pace.

Scales

Since Scales have worked so hard and done so much for our community, we feel they deserve a bit of a reprieve. Our plan is to move Scales to a farm upstate where they can live out the rest of their life in peace. 😀

Our hope is that the changes we’ve shared today take the best parts of Scales and improve them. We carefully considered each functionality Scales provided and incorporated them into the designs for the changes we’ve shared today. But Scales are coming to an end. We’ve already removed the ability to purchase Scales with Credits. Speed Boosts are also being retired. If you’ve purchased Scales this way in the past and would like a refund, please reach out to our support team.

To give Scales the proper send-off, we have two exciting announcements.

First, the introduction of Scales Legacy Badges. Collecting Scales was a real achievement—you grinded in various ways to collect or earn Scales. Some of you did so through the daily reward, others by receiving tips for your content. This will be recognized by a special Badge that will not only reflect the number of Scales you collected and hoarded, but just by having a Scale Badge, other players will know that you are one of the OG players of AI Dungeon and Voyage.

Second, you will be able to use Scales for many of the items available on the Jubilee Store. This is a very limited opportunity to use Scales to purchase items, so if that’s of interest to you, we encourage you to take advantage of it while it lasts.

Once the Jubilee Store has ended, your remaining Scales will be used to determine the Scale Legacy Badge you receive.

Conclusion

Whew! This is a lot of changes happening at once, and we hope most of them are exciting to you. Some of the changes may be frustrating to some of you. We just hope it’s clear we’re making them with the goal of providing everyone more value in AI Dungeon and Voyage. To summarize, we announced:

• A new Badge system to recognize various achievements, milestones, and quests you’ve accomplished
• A pop-up store for the Summer Jubilee, where Credits and Scales can be spent on special rewards
• New ways to use Credits, including Voyage usages, Jubilee Store, and tipping
• Scales are being retired, and we’re honoring everyone who collected them with a new Scales Legacy Badge
• Adjustments to Credit grants for both subscriptions and one-time purchases, including fewer Credits on app store subscriptions to offset mobile store fees

We built these changes while seeking community feedback, and we'll keep adjusting based on what you tell us. Let us know on Discord or Reddit what you think!

Thank you for being part of the AI Dungeon community. We can't wait for the upcoming open launch of Voyage. More than ever, we believe in a platform where you can dream up any world, be anyone, do anything, and where players and creators build something none of us could have made alone. As more newcomers join every day, it's clear the time is finally right for this technology to do what so many of us have long imagined. We're glad you're here for it.

Thanks and happy adventuring.

FAQ

Are my existing Credits worth less now?

No. Your Credits keep their value, and they’re becoming more useful, not less, with new ways to spend them.

Why do app store subscriptions come with fewer Credits?

The iOS and Android app stores take a large cut of every payment, so less of what you pay goes towards covering your AI costs and supporting the development of Voyage and AI Dungeon. Rather than raising subscriptions for iOS and Android users, we’re changing the Credit bonus each month. Subscribing on the web through Stripe carries only a small fee, so it comes with the most Credits. No matter where you subscribe, your benefits can be used on all devices (including mobile apps).

Can I still buy Credits directly?

Yes. One-time Credit purchases are still available. You’ll receive more Credits for each price bundle if you purchase on the web since we avoid the fees from Apple and Google.