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."

Dilbert said it best...

[LingNoi]

Vouchers, like money but expires and you can only use it at one store.

Sounds like what this is. It's yet another way to stop you getting a refund on that crappy game which promised the moon and delivered crap.

Vast proliferation of value cards

[Animats]

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.

Re:i have never paid to play a game online...

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to feel the same way, 'fuck you I already pay for internet, why would I rent your game too?'

But then I did some math, Brand new computer games (with limited replayability) cost between 50 adn 70 bucks, they last me around 2-3 months, sometimes less, very very rarely more.

A WoW subscription costs me about 15$ a month. Keeps me entertained, and comes with enough content that its quite likely WotLK will be released before I've seen everything in BC.

I recently bought Rome:Total war, it cost me 45bucks (was the gold, came with BI) I lost interest in under a week, while it was a great game, and I love that type of game play I'd knocked off the main roman campaign in under a week, and putzed around for maybe a month ontop of that. So far value lost vs WoW.

Enter the modders, R:TR (total realism) basically improved the game 100 fold, but that was a free man made mod, shows you the value of extra content eh?

So on the balance a subscription game isn't so bad, I spend LESS on computer games now than I did back when I still clung to my hatred of subscription services.

Subscriptions give you something over the company, they want you to keep playing (and paying) which means you usually get new shit.

Don't get me wrong a shitty game is a shitty game, subscription or otherwise, but if you like the game don't let its payment method throw you off.

BTW, what the hell does your claimed internet addiction have to do with time cards?

As a person who plays one of these......

[Immostlyharmless]

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..

Re:Dilbert said it best...

[Farmer Pete]

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.

Re:i have never paid to play a game online...

[thesandtiger]

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.