Wild Tangent introduces WildCoins micro-payments

Dean's San Jose Blog, of which I'm becoming an avid reader, talks about a new twist for casual gaming:

But St. John says that casual gamers ought to have more options. So he has created WildCoins, which are worth about 25 cents. One coin will get someone a chance to play a game once or twice. Using digital rights management technology that can track games at 25 cents a pop, Wild Tangent can turn off the game once the coins are used up. So gamers can play a bunch of games for just 25 cents each. If they want to buy and own the game, they can do so at any time and their used WildCoins will go toward the purchase.

But this new system of paying for games doesn’t come with the hassle of micro-payments. Instead, the gamers buy a roll of coins for $10 each. So the credit card transaction is $10, not just 25 cents. And big companies such as Coca-Cola can run free promotions by purchasing lots of WildCoin rolls from Wild Tangent. Coca-Cola can then turn around and give away the WildCoins. This lowers the cost of entry from $20 to just 25 cents for playing a game, and it means that developers won’t lose all of their sales to the free games that gamers can enjoy so easily.

-- The Beast From Redmond Strike Again





tagged: game, gaming