No Barriers to Fun!

We met our friend Giddeon at the AbleGamers Accessibility Arcade in Atlantic City, New Jersey. When he first sat down with the AbleGamers crew, Giddeon didn't want to play any games. He told us that with his disability gaming was difficult. Giddeon has a rare disease that caused the growth of his arms .. Read More
A Window to the World

Shepherd University invited the AbleGamers Foundation to come on campus and do one of our Accessibility Arcades for the students and local disabled community. The event was a roaring success with hundreds of children and adults coming out to see the technology and in some cases experience gaming the first time. Read More

About the AbleGamers Foundation

Since 2004, the AbleGamers Foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, has served more than 56 million members of the disabled community by advocating greater access in video games. Today, AbleGamers is a leader in the development of equipment, programs and services to those living with disabilities, hardships, and quality-of-life issues that are a result of chronic illness or trauma. It is our goal to ensure that all people, regardless of their disability, can use gaming as a tool to have enriched social experiences with friends, family, and the world at large.

Virtual Currency in Facebook Gaming

Written by Rebecca Fortelka

Published on 23 March 2010

dr_evil {sidebar id=1}Virtual Currency seems to be the wave of the future in the world of Facebook Gaming. But according to Offerpal, 53.3% percent of consumers are willing engage in alternative payments to earn virtual currency. Whereas, 29.7% of social gamers do not have the ability or the means to pay for virtual currency with cash options and would prefer to earn currency other ways.

I could not fathom playing my favorite Facebook games like Mafia Wars and Café world with only virtual currency just to get exclusive content. This would force you to basically have to pay to play your favorite games. But because you paid for the game you would now get to purchase exclusive items for your game instead of just earning them through good game play.

According to a comScore study, 53.3% of the total respondents reported that they would be “very likely” to complete a marketing action such as filling out a survey, watching a video, shopping at online retailers or signing up for a subscription in order to get points for the games they play on leading social networks, instead of being forced to buy virtual currency.

By completing offers in order to get points for the games, users provide endless amounts of information and market research to companies about habits, hobbies and other tidbits, which then allows them to better target the audience they want to reach.

How gaming companies would prefer that you get virtual currency is to buy the points using cash payment methods such as credit cards, PayPal, bank transfers or mobile billing. But this method of payment was only liked by 22.8 percent of respondents according to Offerpal.

Since most are unwilling or unable to pay for virtual currency they would prefer to do the following activities in order of popularity; first is completing a free survey, second is watching a video, thirdly completing tasks such as photo tagging or editing a document. Finally people prefer to shop for online goods and also subscribing to a movie rental program such as Netflix’s.

Some more interesting facts about gaming on social networking outlets according to Offerpal.com is that gamers in the 25-34 age range are most likely 70.9 % to be willing to earn virtual currency through marketing actions such as surveys or shopping. In addition, Newcomscore says those who say they are “very likely” to buy points with a cash payment method, a majority of the users are men 53.4% and a plurality in the 25-34 age range 42.8%.

Also, when Offerpal asked what kinds of games they play on a regular basis, 58.4% of the respondents said they regularly play virtual world/simulation games, followed by arcade games 40.3%, role playing games 33.5%, action games 29.7%, board games 26.9%, card games 25.6% and word games 23.4%.

Overall, this data shows that there is clearly a strong demand within social gaming for alternative ways to pay for virtual currency. So, please enjoy your favorite games and collect all of the exclusive content you can before you will need currency to get them!