[casual_games] Different Payment Models

[Vishal Gondal (GMAIL)]

Hi All,

In india we have gone for a subscription price option based on the market
condition. Thought it will be a good to share will the group.

In India over 85% of all games are pirated (and in case of online we think
this is 99%) people buy the big PC games which cost $20-$30 in the market
for $2 a CD and for online games the percived value is even lower and most
people get them cracked or go to multple sites and download the games.
Therefore in a model where we offer the games at a per download model the
consumer will always find it "more attractive"  to pirate the games. We had
to therefore look at a solution which drives "Value for Money" aspect for
the consumer. We arrived with a monthly subscription price point of Rs 200
($4.4) per month in which we offer the consumers a good catalog of games of
all kind of catagories. 
 
India had gome throught a similar issue on the pirated Movie business where
there were many corner shops renting you VHS tapes of movies for as little
as 20 cents. But with the advent of Cable TV where consumers pay a fixed
montly fee and could see an unlimited number of movie and entertainment
channel the Pirated Movie business had a big hit.. currently piracy is
limited to the absolutely new movies till the time they hit TV.. We feel
that games businesss will behave in a similar way. 

Vishal Gondal
Founder & Director
Indiagames Ltd


-----Original Message-----
From: casual_games-bounces at igda.org [mailto:casual_games-bounces at igda.org]
On Behalf Of Chris Dillman
Sent: Monday, October 09, 2006 1:01 AM
To: IGDA Casual Games SIG Mailing List
Subject: Re: [casual_games] Different Payment Models

>
>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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