[casual_games] Different Payment Models

[Chris Dillman]

>
>By having a small monetizeable unit to buy games with, we can start doing a
>lot of new and interesting things that allow us to maintain our IP while
>still working with big advertising companies. And again, for fresh young
>developers, that's good too, no?


>
>To be honest, I was really excited about this model when I heard them walk
>through it - and was hoping:
>1) To hear other opinions on the model or other possible models for
>extracting money at lower price points.

You would probably call this model micropayments.

You might want to read the

Tho a true micropayment is supposed to be like pennies or less any how.

There was a lot of MMO style games moving to or playing with this 
idea out at E3.

http://www.puzzlepirates.com/

for instance runs subscription servers and micropayment servers
where you can play for free if you want or pay for additional features.

They report making a long more revenue off of micropayment servers
then off of a normal full subscription server.

Personally I love the idea for both MMOs and casual games...
I also like teh idea of ads in games.

There are MMOs I would play... like D&D online... but not for 15$ a month.
5$ maybe... or free plus ads would be great.

So downside.

I think micropayments might work well for WT and other large portals.

But they will not work well for a small game developer with a few games.


Some problems.

1. There is no standard way on the web to easily pay a micro payment.

2. Its work to even get people to sign up for any service.
Which means its even more work if a new player need to sign up for a 
micro payment service. Or 10 services if they are using 10 different 
game companies.

What might work well is having it offered in addition to normal $20 fee etc.

3. Wild Tangent offers a in game Ad SDk now also.
You might want to take a look at that.


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