Virtual Goods News

Engage Passport (our social network for Virtual Goods Conf. and Engage! attendees) Launches

As a part of our preshow planning we have launched Engage Passport. Passport is the social network exclusively for Engage! Expo attendees (including Virtual Goods Conference, 3DTLC and Digital Law Conference). Passport allows you to find people who share your similar interests and connect with them now to make your show experience a more profitable one. Engage! Passport will stay operational so you can stay in touch with attendees and speakers prior to, during and after the show.  When you registered (register here if you haven't already) for the show you received a confirmation email with a link to join Passport.  Early registration ends August 14th (just one week away) so register - save $300 - and get started with the pre-show networking.

Peanut Labs Partners With Frogster America

This week ad offer provider Peanut Labs announced a new partnership with online games publisher Frogster America. The deal would bring Peanut Labs's youth-friendly survey-based ad offers into Frogster America's freemium MMORPG Runes of Magic as an alternative way of earning virtual currency. The Peanut Labs surveys generally take 5 to 10 minutes to complete and are completely anonymous. The idea is to let young players who can't or won't spend money directly on virtual currency in the game support it by filling out the surveys.

Cellufun Rolls Out Summer Social Games

The season may be drawing to a close, but that hasn't stopped mobile social network Cellufun from rolling out a new series of summer-themed mobile social games. All involve virtual items and encouraging users to buy Cellufun's FunCoins virtual currency. The three games in the Beach Party line are Strut Your Stuff, Sand Castles, and Beach Combing.

"More than fifty percent of Cellufun's members come 'off deck' through operators like AT&T and Sprint, where you can't even find Beach Party or Cellufun in the carriers' game catalogs," said Neil Edwards, CEO of Cellufun. "We continue to be amazed that Cellufun sees viral growth because our members spread the word to their friends who join them in games like Beach Party."

Oberon Adopts Microtransaction Model

Oberon Media, a casual game maker with more than six years in the space, is transitioning operations with a move into microtransaction-based gaming.

The developer-publisher already has a presence across all platforms, but its recently launched Facebook title, Bubble Town: Party Planet, marks its commitment into new territory -- free-to-play social games which count on viral spread for reach and microtransactions for revenue.

Cellufun Users Now Top 2M

Mobile social game portal Cellufun today said registered users had passed the 2 million mark. The news comes less than a week after the company raised $1 million in bridge financing from current investor Longworth Venture Partners. Cellufun disclosed a slew of other data points today as well: over the past several months it says it has tallied more than 150,000 new monthly registrations; its registered users average more then seven hours of play time per month; the demographic split by gender is about 55 percent female and 45 percent male (in the 16-34 age group); and approximately 25 percent if its users use smart phones while the rest are on basic phones (though all phones need web access). Cellufun boasts that it is the "first and only social community" that works on any phone with a data plan which also supports the purchase of virtual goods -- in all currencies. While many Cellufun games are free-to-play, there is a strong virtual goods and currency aspect to in-game items and other content.

Playdom Debuts Mobsters 2

Sequels drive traditional console gaming, where fans want to know they've spent their hard-earned money on a sure bet. In the much younger social gaming market, sequels are relatively rare. When it comes to the booming mafia text RPG genre, Playdom has launched one of the very first sequels today with Mobsters 2: Vendetta. The game monetizes along the usual lines for a mafia game, selling players virtual currency and items, but introduces a variety of new features.

Virtual Currency Included in Sims 3 World Adventure Expansion

This week Electronic Arts announced the first expansion for its recently-launched The Sims 3, World Adventure, to ship for PC and Mac on November 16, 2009. The new expansion offers The Sims 3 players new China, Egypt, and France locations as well as new items and skills. A version of the expansion for The Sims 3 on iPhone will ship in early 2010, featuring a new "customized mobile gameplay" feature EA will reveal more about in upcoming months. All buyers of the expansion will receive 1000 complimentary SimPoints, which users can spend on in-game virtual goods in The Sims 3 Store.

Quick Stat: Zong Hits 10M User Milestone, Adds More Carriers

Today the mobile pay company Zong announced that it had surpassed the 10 million unique users milestone. The announcement comes alongside news that Zong is adding new carriers for Eastern Europe, Russia, Southeast Asia, and South America. Zong currently serves 19 different countries over 100 different carriers. When all of Zong's partnerships built during the past year are in place, the company will cover over 30 different countries.

Zong was one of the early players in the mobile pay space, quickly moving into social apps on Facebook and MySpace as one of the payment methods of choice. Zong also has a strong presence in virtual worlds, including Gaia Online, and in MMORPG gaming portals like OutSpark. Zong still claims the most extensive network of direct carrier connections in the world, despite rival start-up Boku claiming to be the field's largest player due to recent acquisitions.

Zong and Boku are considered the largest mobile payment services as of this writing, but that could easily change at any time over the next year as more players like OneTXT, paysafecard, and SocialCord enter the space at an unprecedented rate. 

OneTXT Moves Beyond Payments With ORCA

Mobile pay start-up OneTXT today announced the debut of its ORCA transaction platform, a processing system that uses an open API designed for use by social media developers. The platform's name stands for Optimized Real-Time Currency Application. It is designed to let any social media app begin processing payments, manage loyalty programs, schedule delivery of virtual items, and control how users "see" these transactions happening. This lets users complete purchases of virtual goods without ever leaving the social app in question.

PlaySpan Debuts Ultimate Payment Wall

Today PlaySpan announced its Ultimate Payment Wall, a solution supporting multiple payments intended for use by developers of social network games. The Wall is an iFrame implementation that lets users immediately pick from one of fifty different international payment methods, including PayPal and credit card, based on how much the final cost of the transaction will be when processing fees and currency exchange are taken into account.