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Interest Growing For Pre-Paid Game Cards
Worlds in Motion is running an interview with GMG Entertainment, a company finding success marketing pre-paid "digital currency cards" used online for games and other entertainment services. Customers and retailers alike are enjoying the simplicity and utility of the cards, and GMG suggests that this segment of the industry will only continue to grow:
"I estimate this year that you'll see EA enter this space for some of their games, and a few other big names are absolutely interested. In fact we're in final negotiations with a couple of recognizable names. We tend to estimate the size of the total pre-paid gaming card business when we do our numbers, and this year we're looking to something between $75-100 million dollars in sales across North America. We see that going to $250-300 million in 2009 and being in the region of a half-billion by 2010. We see this market growing dramatically in the next two to five years."
Whole sections of value cards, all incompatible, are showing up in stores now.
A Hispanic organization has been researching the various "Call Mexico" phone cards, and on average they deliver about 60% of their face value. It turns out that some of them have no value at all.
I played WoW for about 6 months, leveled a character to 70, realized that end game sucked because I was paying a monthly fee to play a game where everything end game is on a timer....Wanna do X dungeon? Only once this week! Wanna make some material? Only once every 3 or 4 days...
Screw that...
Soooo now I'm playing a bit of Combat Arms which is a free shooter, but Nexon has implemented the micro-transaction system in such a way that its completely unappealing to attempt to "purchase" anything with game card cash. It would be one thing if I dropped 3 or 4 bucks on outfit or a weapon I got to keep for as long as I played the game. Nope...you pay real money to RENT outfits, guns and characters. 10 bucks a month to rent a character skin that gives you some hypersonic speed boost. There are some games coming out which promise that the microtransaction items are merely going to be cosmetic and game enhancing, not player ability enhancing....Im looking forward to those coming out soon, hopefully they will get the formula better....
But, if the currret trend is where gaming with microtransactions is headed? Count me out for them ever getting money out of me. On the other hand, if it really was a *micro* transaction (think 2-5 bucks an item), could be done with my debit card, I kept said item for the life of the game and and items weren't introduced that completely threw off the game balance? Then they might very well be looking at getting 20-50 bucks out of me if its a game I like..
The use they had when I've seen them was for playing online games without using a credit card. Believe it or not, many people who play MMORPGs are under age. Some of them either can't, or don't want to give their parent power over them by having them pay for the games directly. Instead, they go to Best Buy every month and purchase the game cards themselves. This system really isn't a bad one, and it doesn't really take advantage of anyone. The trick is, it needs to remain what it is and not become something more. If I am forced to buy game cards instead of use my credit card, I would be a little angry. I don't want to drive to the store to purchase these cards, nor do I want to purchase extras so I don't have to go back. I quit online games fairly often, so paying for them in advance has always been a bad deal for me.
You think playing games less so that you can have time for watching television is somehow an improvement? Really?
Given that, I'm not terribly surprised that you aren't able to understand why other people might like things that you do not.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.