Skip to main content

​
Who does what

You run the marketplace: listings, search, matching, pricing, and disputes. ZBD doesn’t see any of it. ZBD handles settlement. You work out who gets what, and send one instruction with the buyer, the items, and every recipient’s share. ZBD moves the value. ZBD doesn’t store split rules, so you can change your fees and royalties without telling ZBD. The marketplace can live inside your game, on a companion site, or on a standalone platform such as a mod portal. Whoever runs it is the publisher.

​
Settling a sale

Settle a Marketplace Sale takes one buyer and one or more line items, so a cart with several items from different sellers settles in one call. Each line item lists every recipient and their amount, each with a role: The amounts have to add up: recipients to their line item, and line items to the total. Every part settles together, so either all of it lands or none of it does. ZBD’s fee comes out of your cut, never a seller’s proceeds or a royalty. If you want to keep 5% and ZBD’s fee is 5%, charge a 10% marketplace fee. The response shows ZBD’s fee as its own movement.

​
Seller verification

A seller has to be verified before a sale that settles in fiat, and so does anyone receiving a royalty. Sales in your own virtual currency don’t need it, since no real money leaves. Where it applies, this is the most important part of a marketplace integration to get right. A buyer can purchase at any time, often long after the listing went up and while the seller is offline. If the seller isn’t verified, the sale fails and nobody is there to fix it. We recommend prompting sellers to verify when they create their first listing. It’s worth doing even where a sale doesn’t require it. Any seller who wants to cash out will need to verify eventually, and it’s easier for them before they’re waiting to get paid.

​
What the seller receives

Sale proceeds land in the seller’s balance. In a convertible currency, that gives players a quick route to real money, which can change how they use the rest of your economy.

​
What to send with each item

Along with the recipients and amounts, send for each line item:
  • The listing reference
  • When the listing was created
  • Whether it was an open listing anyone could buy, or a direct deal between two named players
The last two help ZBD’s risk checks. A listing that was open for a day before it sold looks very different from one created and bought in the same second, and ZBD can’t tell them apart without this information.