Where the money comes from, how your finds get their value, and how the coins flow.
QRfest runs two economies side by side. The first is the in–game coin economy — Gold, Silver, Brass and Iron Nails — that you earn and spend on shops, healing and gear. The second is a real–world backing economy: some of your finds carry a US dollar value that — subject to our Terms — can eventually be turned into real money. This page explains how each one fills up, where the value comes from, and how the two connect.
Real money enters the QReconomy in one place: when a hero pays to register. That payment lands in the on–system treasury we call the Game Bank, and is split two ways — a small slice (10%) to the Server Bank (the house’s cut) and the rest (90%) into the Backing Pool. The Backing Pool is the pot of real value that stands behind every backed find in the game. (Heroes who join for free add $0 — they still play the full game, they just don’t add to the pool.)
More money in → the pool grows → finds become worth more.
Items, minions and equipment enter the game when you scan a QR. Each QR can only ever be scanned once, and is rated on a tier from 0 to 10 by how rare it is in the real world — rarer QRs give you a better shot at rarer finds. When a find lands in an empty slot on your character sheet, the game quietly attaches a backing value to it by drawing a slice of the Backing Pool. That’s the moment a find becomes “worth something” in the real–world economy.
The more players who find the same thing, the cheaper that thing becomes (it’s no longer rare).
Finds aren’t the only way gear shows up. You can also buy from merchants using coins (more on those below) — but a coin–bought item is not backed by real value. And the arena lets you risk items and minions for the chance to win — or lose — them.
The everyday in–game money is four coins. Three of them stack up like loose change: 100 Brass = 1 Silver, and 100 Silver = 1 Gold (so 1 Gold is 10,000 Brass). Iron Nails are their own separate pocket — they don’t convert up and down the Brass–Silver–Gold ladder.
You earn coins by selling your finds to merchants (the merchant keeps a small per–tier sell–tax slice), and you start with a purse set by your chosen character. You spend coins at the six merchants — weapons, armour, trinkets, pendants, bags and the minion market — which open and close on a daily rotation, and at the Healer to patch your hero back up.
Here’s the clever part. The total real–world value of everything players are holding is kept in step with the Backing Pool. Two forces push on it:
• More money in lifts values. When registrations grow the pool, the game
re–floats the catalogue so finds are worth a little more.
• More finds dilute values. Every new find draws from the same pool, so as
a particular item or minion is discovered by more and more players it becomes less rare
and worth less. Selling, using or discarding finds does the reverse — it
concentrates the pool back onto whatever’s left.
The books always balance: everything the system owes — the Server Bank, the value of all held finds, every player’s cash wallet, and anything mid–cash–out — adds back up to the total money that ever came in. Nothing is created from nothing.
A backed find isn’t just a trophy. Where the feature is available to you, you can sell a find for $: its backing value moves into your cash wallet (a real–money balance), and the item leaves your sheet. From there a cash–wallet balance can be redeemed — cashed out to you via PayPal.
Real–money redemption is subject to our Terms — eligibility, verification and availability may vary, and the feature may not be enabled in your region or at all times.
The coins and the dollars stay in separate purses, and they cross over in exactly one place: your finds. A QR find (or an event/arena grant that lands in a fresh slot) carries both a coin sale–price and a real–world backing value. A coin–bought item, by contrast, is purely in–game — it never gains a real–world backing and can never be cashed out. So the coins you grind in shops and the dollars behind your discoveries never quietly turn into one another.
QRfest is a game. In–game coins — Gold, Silver, Brass and Iron Nails — are virtual items with no monetary value; they cannot be exchanged for cash and have no value outside the game. Any real–money redemption of a find’s backing value is discretionary and subject to our Terms, including eligibility, age and jurisdiction requirements, identity verification, and availability — it may be limited, changed, or withdrawn at any time, and may not be available to you. Nothing here is an offer of, or advice about, gambling or investment. Please read the full Terms before taking part.