BWI: PlaySpan Reports Findings from New Consumer Insights Survey on Retail Game Cards

Press release from Business Wire India
Source: PlaySpan India Pvt Ltd
Friday, March 20, 2009 04:46 PM IST (11:16 AM GMT)
Editors: General: Consumer interest; Business: Advertising, PR & marketing, Business services, Information technology, Retailers; Technology
Release no: 19519
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PlaySpan Reports Findings from New Consumer Insights Survey on Retail Game Cards


Mumbai, Maharashtra, India, Friday, March 20, 2009 -- (Business Wire India) -- PlaySpan, the leader in monetization solutions for online games, virtual worlds, and social networks, today announced several key findings in a new consumer insights survey from users of its Ultimate Game Card (UGC) payment option.

The Ultimate Game CardT is a stored value card that supports more than 300 multiplayer games and virtual worlds, with current availability in more than 21,000 retail stores in the U.S. and Canada, as well as thousands of locations worldwide.

"The Ultimate Game Card enables many of our young gamers who don't have credit cards to purchase premium items in War Rock and Knight Online," said Joshua Hong, CEO of GamersFirst, also known as K2 Network. "In fact, the Ultimate Game Card has proved complementary to our own retail cards because it provides access to additional retail channels previously unavailable to us."

According to the survey of two thousand five hundred and eighty-two (2,582) consumers:

The vast majority, more than 75%, said they log in more than two hours a day in virtual worlds or playing video games.

20.9% received the card from a friend, parents or relatives. The remaining majority bought the card as a "gift‟ for themselves.

51.9% of users polled said they had already recommended UGC to a friend and 29% recommended it to more than ten friends demonstrating the viral growth of gaming.

48% of were between the ages of 14-18, the key age demographic of game cards.

35.8% had purchased over four cards since the availability of the product. 80% were likely to buy the Ultimate game card again.

"The retail game card market has very little data for the industry and our objective with the survey is to shed some light on this fast growing market sector," said Karl Mehta, CEO of PlaySpan. "As the leader in retail game cards we‟re planning to share more data over the months ahead."

About PlaySpan, Inc.

PlaySpanT is the leader in monetization solutions for online games, virtual worlds, and social networks. PlaySpan's patent-pending in-game virtual goods commerce and micropayment platform enables game publishers and developers to generate new revenues, acquire new users, and extend the loyalty of existing users.

PlaySpan also offers global payment solutions through its subsidiary PayByCash® with 70+ payment methods in 180 countries and ULTIMATE GAME CARD® available for 300+ games in over 21,000 retail locations across North America and several key markets worldwide.

PlaySpan is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Charlottesville, Virginia, Cincinnati, Ohio and Mumbai. Investors include Easton Capital, Menlo Ventures, STIC and Novel TMT Ventures.

For more information about PlaySpan, visit http://corp.playspan.com/.


CONTACT DETAILS
Vinayak Rao, PlaySpan India Pvt Ltd, +91 9820045958, Vinayak.rao@playspan.com

KEYWORDS
CONSUMER, MARKETING, BUSINESS SERVICES, IT, RETAIL, TECHNOLOGY

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