Facebook Game Credits For Sale At Retail Outlets
While many online gaming companies in the country seem to be wavering in their sales campaigns, Facebook is getting aggressive and partnering with a Malaysian company to sell credits at retail outlets across Asia for the first time. The deal aims to make it easier for millions of people to purchase virtual goods and play games on the social networking site while boosting revenue for the game developers. The move is targeting people who do not have credit cards, particularly younger Facebook users, and those who do not want to take the risk of making payments online.
Money Online (MOL), the Malaysian electronic payments company that will handle the sales of Facebook game credits, said it will offer the online currency starting August 1st at more than 500,000 outlets including 7-Eleven stores and Internet cafes in five Southeast Asian countries, India, Australia and New Zealand. It will be the first time that consumers can buy credits for Facebook’s applications, including such popular games as Mob Wars and FarmVille, without credit cards. In Southeast Asia, the credits will be sold in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines.
So what does the deal mean for the i-café business in the Philippines? Would the availability of Facebook credits at retail outlets including Load Central make i-café goers buy them and boost the waning revenues in many areas? Let us hope that the current patronage of Facebook games by i-café customers would translate to purchases of credits that could augment the income of the business.
For Playfish (Pet Society, etc), they have this payment option of Pay by Cash. For icafe businesses with LoadCentral like us, customers can buy Ultimate Game cards for Playfish coins. It’s a bit expensive, though, because for $10, they have to pay Php 500.
I hope MOL’s plan will be a cheaper alternative. A lot of Facebook gamers here would love to buy credits for their fave Facebook games.
And, yes, it can really boost our sales. Like, for instance, a very popular Facebook game here in our area is Pet Forest. A lot of our customers bought Php 250 worth of load the past weeks. We were not expecting the demand so we only got to sell about Php 1,500 before our load wallet was zeroed. *LoL*
Every Php 250 load gives us a profit of Php 30. So, I really hope we’ll also have that much profits from selling MOL’s Facebook credits.
Thank you very much for the additional information, Michelle. I really appreciate it.
Hi Sir Edz,
A little OT, it’s only now that I noticed.
From “X I C Owner” to “Owning an iCafe?”
Hi Dan,
If you mean to ask if I am now again “Owning An I-Café” and no longer an “eX I-Cafe Owner (xicowner)”, I am not. I just corrected my blog’s title from “Owning a Café” to “Owning An I-Café”. Actually, I intentionally used the original title then to catch the attention of foreign readers and it did the trick. I still have more readers from other countries than from the Philippines.
Okay, thanks for the input, I thought you are running an iCafe again. Honestly, I am exploring business opportunities now. Particularly in the resort business
Thanks Sir Ed
I’d like to thank iCafe Blogger for the information she shared…:)
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