Archive for September, 2009

Offerpal Launches Offerpal SURVEYS

Surveys have always been an important part of our offer mix. We’ve got over 1,000 survey offers available in 50+ countries, and to date we’ve already paid out more than $12 million to developers in revenue earned strictly through surveys.

But now, we’ve made it even easier for developers to monetize through surveys, with the launch of the Offerpal SURVEYS platform.

A survey option has always been available within our I-Frame, presented through both a “Surveys” tab as well as a “Survey of the Day” tab. By creating a standalone platform specifically for survey offers, however, we’re able to cater to those publishers who wish to monetize strictly through surveys. This might make sense, for instance, in cases where the developer’s demographics are more apt to take surveys than other types of offers, or where developers wish to tap into the added stickiness of the new platform’s “Survey of the Day” feature.

Offerpal SURVEYS will include the following features:

• 1,000+ survey offers
• Availability in over 50 countries
• Direct sales staff constantly adding new survey offers
• Surveys backed by top market research firmsfrom top market research firms including Nielsen NetRatings, Comscore, OTX Research Inc., Synovate and others.
• Superior payouts
• Offerpal’s complete suite of services, including customer support, security and fraud prevention, virtual currency analytics, multivariate testing and more.

Developers interested in using Offerpal SURVEYS should contact their account rep or email publishersupport@offerpal.com.

How the iPhone’s “Next Hit Game” Makes Money

Earlier today, @JasonKincaid over at TechCrunch wrote about one of Offerpal’s key iPhone partners, Side Hobby, calling their gpsAssassin app “the next highly addictive hit game.” He went on:

a new game called gpsAssassin may have struck gold by fusing location and the popular campus game Assassins with the text-based games that have become immensely popular on social networks, Twitter, and the iPhone.

Jason might not know just how right he was about gpsAssassin having “struck gold.” Since switching to the freemium model earlier this month — giving the game away for free and making money from users who purchase virtual goods within the game — the early returns have been very promising.

gpsAssassin is a game where you are invited to “kill or be killed.” Basically, you track down other players in your area (using GPS, of course), and attack them in a variety of clever and hilarious ways. You advance your rank in the game by beating your victims or fending off your attackers. Virtual currency comes into play in the form of “Blood Money,” which lets you get better weapons or armor.

When Side Hobby first launched the game, the price was $4.99, though enough units of “Blood Money” were sold that the company decided to lower the price to $0.99 and place greater emphasis on monetizing through virtual currency. By mid-September, the revenues from virtual currency were great enough that Side Hobby decided to offer the game completely free and put all of their eggs into the virtual currency basket.

Since then, the game has literally exploded, adding thousands of new users every day. And the revenue bet seems to be paying off as well.

Users can buy “Blood Money” through the App Store or through Google Checkout on the company’s web site. Or they can earn it for free by taking part in targeted ad offers through Offerpal. Since implementing Offerpal through the Tapjoy SDK, about 30% of the game’s total revenues have been generated through ad offers.

Will more iPhone developers follow suit and adopt the “freemium” model that has benefited game developers on other platforms so well? Probably so. While $0.99 may be a small price to ask for a truly fun and engaging game, the distribution potential of a free game and revenue potential of virtual currency combine to far outweigh the limited distribution of any paid game.

Victor Keegan on the “virtual boom”

Over at the UK’s Gaurdian web site, Victor Keegan this week published a good read on why the virtual goods market is more than just a passing fad, going so far as to compare the “seismic economic change” that virtual goods represent to the industrial revolution.

Keegan estimates the size of the virtual goods market in Asia alone at around $5 billion, and though he admits the numbers are hard to come by, he paints a picture of the rest of the world as catching  up quickly.

He then goes on to argue that there are several reasons why this growth will only continue, pointing to evidence such as the  advancements in virtual worlds, social networks, and what he calls “the three-dimensional web”; the growth of virtual meetings and collaboration, especially in the workplace; and, most relevant to Offerpal’s business:

Fourth, the engine of economic growth in virtual worlds has been micropayments, providing an easy way to buy virtual swords or roses or whatever for a very small amount of money. If micropayments – with Rupert Murdoch leading the charge – finally make it to the mainstream internet, then virtual goods would get a huge boost.

Thanks to @amyjokim for pointing the article out.