BOTS!!, a free massively multiplayer online game featuring customizable fighting robots that transform, allows customers to buy upgrade items with Acclaim Coins, which can now be purchased through PayByCash. The huge number of Acclaim Games customers who either don’t have a credit card or don’t want to use one online can now upgrade their bots quickly and easily with the power of PayByCash – a recognized worldwide leader in offering alternate payment methods to the massively multiplayer online game community.
Acclaim is presently or soon servicing three new games, a flagship title called “9Dragons;” in Open Beta since December 21st, “2Moons,” which will be released early in 2007; and “DANCE! Online,” which will be the first massively multiplayer online dancing game released in the US. It will match millions of players against each other in dance battles across cyberspace. PayByCash will be offering their full suite of alternate payment options for each these titles as Acclaim Games launches them.
According to Kevin Higgins, PayByCash CEO, “Acclaim Games’ digital objects sales business model is one we’ve historically been very successful in supporting. No other payment processor does a better job of helping merchants like Acclaim monetize the demographic they’re pursuing.”
“Our players have been asking us to offer PayByCash because they are comfortable using it for their online payments. Our goal is to build the best playing community, free games and offer the largest variety of payment services which has to include PayByCash” said Howard Marks, CEO of Acclaim Games.
IGA Worldwide’s agreement with Acclaim extends its position as the leading independent in-game advertising network, increasing not only its reach, but simultaneously broadening the available demographic audience beyond core gamers to include the social gamer. There is enormous potential for social gaming due to explosive growth of broadband access. Acclaim launched BOTS!! in July 2006 and it’s already a hit with close to 500,000 registered users from North America and Europe.
IGA Worldwide defines social games as online multi-player, action, adventure or role-playing games. Multiple demographics are reached based on game type, but all games are generally free to download or play online and use an in-game advertising revenue model.
“This agreement expands the growth of our advertising network into social gaming, delivering a mass market to advertisers wanting to access the powerful engagement and proven effectiveness of in-game advertising,” said Justin Townsend, CEO of IGA Worldwide. “This is the first of a string of announcements in this exciting new space, with well over 20 titles signed and due for launch over the coming quarter, bringing our total available reach in line with that of a TV network.”
“Acclaim Games’ titles already deliver millions of impressions a day and with our growing list of titles we expect to break the ten million daily impressions within months,” said Howard Marks, CEO of Acclaim Games. “Acclaim offers its sophisticated multi-player game content online for free and charges for optional in-game virtual items, and we are pleased to join IGA Worldwide’s network that enables us to continue to offer our games free to players,” added Marks.
With many online social games free to play and generating huge audience numbers, the advertising revenue from IGA Worldwide’s Radial Network is an optimal way for publishers and operators to further monetize their intellectual property.