WildTangent Opens Revolutionary WildCoin™ Accounts for Gamers
Arcade style payment system for over 250 games at www.Wildgames.com
Los Angeles, Ca. - Thursday 11th May, 2006 -
Today at E3, WildTangent Inc., one of the Internet's leading
online game publishers, announced plans to launch a
revolutionary new currency for game players this summer
called WildCoins. Consumers can use "WildCoins" to pay
for games on a per session basis, complimenting the existing
$19.95 try-and-buy model. Sessions can be purchased for as
little as one WildCoin and gamers can play for as long
as they like.
WildCoins are virtual tokens with a 25 cent retail
value that consumers can earn, win or purchase to play the
industries most popular downloadable casual games, including
the award winning FATE, Polar Bowler, BlasterBall2 and the
stunning new game Penguins!
A major advance in the business model of casual gaming
WildTangent has solved a persistent obstacle for consumers
and developers with WildCoins. Today, most casual
games have a fixed free trial period of only 60 minutes
before the consumer has to purchase the game for $20 to
continue playing. With WildCoins, WildTangent has
enhanced its technology to allow consumers to purchase game
play in individual sessions. A session is an unlimited amount
of time between when a consumer launches a game and when they
choose to close it.
WildCoins may be purchased via three distinct plans
from as little as $4.99 making it the most flexible and
consumer-friendly payment system available in the market
today. Unlike subscription services that bill the consumer a
fixed fee no matter how little they use the service, the
WildCoins Pay-as-you-Play account plan allows the
gamer to pay for only as much as they use during the month.
With the Starter and Full WildCoin account plans,
players can automatically purchase WildCoins at a
discount on a monthly basis. With all WildCoin
accounts, all unused WildCoins rollover so consumers
can use them in future months. The Full account plan also
includes an allowance feature for multiple family members and
is value-priced at $19.99/mo.
"Game subscription services have always been a bad deal for
consumers and game developers" said WildTangent CEO, Alex St.
John. "We're very pleased to have found a solution that gives
consumers incredible value and total flexibility in how they
buy game content, while at the same time fairly compensates
all the very talented game developers out there for their
great titles."
Over 40 of the industries top downloadable game developers
including HipSoft, PlayFirst, Sandlot and PopCap have signed
on to accept WildCoin currency in their games ensuring
that all of the most popular online content will be
accessible to consumers from downloadable game services that
accept WildCoin currency. WildCoins will first
be made available to consumers this summer on WWW.WildGames.com.
By this holiday season all major PC OEM's will be
distributing WildTangent powered game console applications on
the desktops of all new consumer PC's with catalogs of over
250 of the best downloadable games available today, and all
WildCoin enabled.
"WildCoins really captures a whole new segment of the
casual games market" said Bryan Bouwman of leading games
developer HipSoft, "There are many people who want to play
online games in small frequent bursts, for them a session is
the perfect unit of game play to buy. WildCoins is a
casual currency for a casual game market."
Downloadable games are the fastest growing segment of the
game industry today according to IDC research which predicts
that sales of downloadable games will exceed one billion
dollars a year by 2008 with revenues from advertising and
subscription services contributing an additional billion
dollars a year in revenue.
Consumers visiting the www.wildgames.com
website in advance of the release of WildCoins later
this summer can register to be notified automatically and get
free WildCoins to spend when the service goes
live.
ENDS
About WildTangent
Founded in 1998, WildTangent is the leading publisher of
online and downloadable games. WildTangent is the pioneer of
in-game and around-game advertising solutions. The company
publishes over 250 leading 1st and 3rd party game titles
through a distribution network that includes the WildTangent
games network, Wildgames.com, leading PC Manufacturers, ISPs,
and portals. From family friendly games like the Polar
franchise to action adventure titles such as Fate,
WildTangent provides online entertainment which appeals to a
broad range of consumers.
In 2005 WildTangent won major OEM distribution deals that
ship The WildTangent games console directly on the desktops
of Dell and HP and Toshiba notebooks, representing over 60%
of PCs in North America.
For further media information contact:
Siobhan Aalders
Siobhan@wctv.com or mediarelationa@wctv.com
212-445-8220 or 347-387-0733
Please visit the WildTangent Booth at E3 - West Hall, booth #
MR2773