Open Network Entertainment recently launched the ONE
Power-Up Game Card, a universal prepaid gift platform, and cooperative
marketing system that supports online game developers, publishers,
virtual
worlds, and social networks. ONE's Vice President of Sales and
Marketing, Pete
Grubb, sat down with Ten Ton Hammer to discuss this new venture and how
it will
affect the future of online gaming.
Ten Ton Hammer: style="font-weight: bold;">Where did you get the
idea for the ONE card?
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Pete Grubb, ONE Vice
President of Sales and Marketing:
We've been looking at this space for close to two years. We actually
had planned on launching a universal platform before some of the
competitors but we really thought it was important to wait and find the
right partner that could give us backend systems that would allow us to
deeply connect with our game publisher partners and do some very
interesting things as it relates to transfer funds.
As you can see from some people in the universal card space, there are
many people that can accept a pre-paid card and move funds from Point A
to Point B. We thought it was very important to provide a better user
experience and more flexibility for the end user so that a ONE Power-Up
Game Card user can use that balance from our game site
(OneGameCard.com) or from the game publisher's site equally as well and
seamlessly.
Ten
Ton Hammer:Can you explain how
the
card works?
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/76466/preview" align="left"
hspace="3">Pete: Sure. The ONE Power-Up
Game Card is truly a universal prepaid
instrument for supporting virtual goods and subscription sales for
online game communities, for virtual worlds, and evolving social
network space. So fundamentally, we establish a balance for the card
when a user activates that card on our system.
A user can take that card, go to our game portal site
(onegamecard.com), enter their PIN if they wish to, and proceed with
that transaction, or we really do encourage them to create an account
and registration with our service. That will allow them to use partial
balances across multiple game properties.
We also establish a special security code for that user. We have what's
called the ONE Power Play Service and the power code is a unique and
secure code that the end user establishes in their profile that then
allows them to use that code on supporting partner sites to redeem
funds and transfer them to the partner's commerce system.
Ten Ton Hammer: style="font-weight: bold;">Who are some of the
partners you have now then?
Pete: Our list is still
growing, but our launch partners include Aeria Games,
OnNet, Games Campus, NDoors Atlantica, JCE, GameHI, and Fantage.
Ten Ton Hammer: style="font-weight: bold;">So they can use the card
to pay for subscriptions as well as micro transactions?
Pete: Correct. So one of the
things that really makes this service different
is the ability to create an auto-recharge service. I think it's a very
powerful feature for online game communities and particularly for
publishers. What we allow you to do for our services is actually create
an automatic recharge card service that can be recharged through a
prepaid card.
I don't know if you have children, but I certainly do and a lot of how
we designed our system is guided by my children's use of online game
properties. Many times you have to give a child an incentive to do
things and in this case, having an automatic recharge type feature that
can be recharged through prepaid cards gives the parents a lot of
power. It's not just a credit card that automatically recharges. There
has to be some conscious decision about the need to recharge. So that's
an example of some of the types of implementations we can support very
easily through our platform.
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src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/76468/preview"
align="right">Ten
Ton Hammer: Are you in a
position to
offer some sort of savings to the end users, like specials on whatever
in-game items they're looking to buy?
Pete:
Yes. So rather than just being a reliable commerce or prepaid
gateway
platform for our partners, we're actually a cooperative marketing
platform for our partners. What that means is that we work with them to
create special incentive to drive new users to our platform and their
game environment. We regularly update those special promotions in use
for new users.
For example, an individual user would come into our site, they would
receive a special incentive from Aria Games load that one card balance
on their Aria Games point balance. We think the incentive and
promotional aspect is very different.
The other aspect that we think is very different from some of the
others that are in this space is the educational component. Today, many
of the users that use prepaid cards are very familiar with the branded
property that they use and look at this as a payment vehicle. That's
all well and good and we'll do some of that as well, but what we're
really focused on is broadening the base of online game use in the
player space.
We believe that we have a responsibility and have taken a proactive
role in educating our members and our users on various aspects of games
for new users that may not be aware of that. So if you go to our site,
you can learn about a game title, a genre, the various elements of the
game, including strategy, the available virtual goods, and really
familiarize yourself with the game. Whereas today, if you just jump
into one of these properties, it could be fairly overwhelming for a
novice user or a casual game user to make the leap to the MMO space.
Ten
Ton Hammer: Do you see this
card
being expanded into more of the mainstream, triple-A MMO titles? Like
something you'd see from Blizzard, or Sony Online Entertainment?
Pete: Yes. Yes we do. We fully
expect to continue to expand this program. We
had a unique ability based on the relationships that we have in the
gaming industry to launch with a very solid base of MMO properties, but
we're actively pursuing new publisher relationships.
Ten Ton Hammer:
style="font-weight: bold;">Is the ONE Power-Up Game
Card out already?
style="width: 174px; height: 179px;" alt=""
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/76469/preview" align="left"
hspace="3">Pete: Yes. Our first retail
partner is Rite Aid. We work with our partner
Incomm to distribute through Rite Aid and we are nationwide in Rite Aid
stores.
Ten Ton Hammer:
style="font-weight: bold;">Has it been received well
so far?
Pete: Yes. We just got started.
Deployment began about a week and a half ago
but we've been very pleased with the results.
Ten Ton Hammer:
style="font-weight: bold;">Thanks so much for taking
the time to talk with us today, Pete. Before we go, is there anything
else you'd like to let our readers know about the ONE Power-Up Game
Card?
Pete: We spoke some about the
user experience and we'll continue to enhance
that over time, but we do believe that when you visit our
onegamecard.com site you'll find it entertaining, useful, educational,
and we expect it to be easy to be used. That's a driving philosophy of
our service.
The other unique aspect is because we are a marketing partner for our
partners, we use a very persistent communications method for our
members. Every time a redemption is transacted in our platform, we
communicate with the end user - the registrant or the user of that
card. That is set up not only from onegamecard.com but also from our
publisher sites. The key there is the constant communication.
ONE not only provides an educational aspect for the user, but for
people that are under the age of 18 we also proactively ask that member
to provide the parent's email address. We send out a parallel message
to the registered user and the parent as well. We're working on a
number of other card safety initiatives to try to create an even better
and safer environment for families and kids.
