Interview

Cellufun: Successful virtual currencies are about content and ease of use not pricing

Experiencing higher usage rates on mobile than PC

Cellufun: Successful virtual currencies are about content and ease of use not pricing
Mobile social gaming community Cellufun recently announced it had completed various deals that enable its in-game FunCoins currency to be used by players in 25 countries.

In North America, FunCoins work out at a rate of 1 cent = 1 FunCoin and Cellufun says it sold 2.5 million virtual goods within three months of launching the system in the US.

We caught up with Keith Katz, Cellufun's veep of marketing, to find out more.

Pocket Gamer: How difficult is it to set up something like FunCoins as a mobile virtual currency, or can you just roll out onto operator billing and existing payment systems?

Keith Katz: On the web, you can just point people to PayPal and you're off and running. For mobile however we have multiple billing partners in North America alone. Take that and scale it globally, and you get some idea of the complexity involved.

This is extremely difficult and time-consuming, which is a big reason why no one else has done it on mobile. Luckily, the founders of Cellufun used to build backend trading systems for Wall Street banks, so this is their bread and butter.

What do you think is the most important feature of a successful virtual currency?

Ultimately it's not about the currency itself. It's about having content that people want to buy. This applies to any freemium model, but on the mobile platform you also have to ensure ease of transactions, offer a sense of security, and provide a tailored experience for mobile.

You can't just port a PC game experience over and expect people to like it. If you could, you'd see Zynga and Playfish doing games across mobile devices now rather than just one-off iPhone apps.

How do you deal with the pricing of the same virtual items in different countries?

We try to keep pricing parity across countries when it makes sense. We're a global community, so a guy in New Orleans, Louisiana could very well have a virtual pet play date with a girl in Orleans, France. We don't want them paying drastically different prices for pet treats.

That said, now that we're moving into countries like India and Bangladesh where there is less disposable income, we do tailor prices so that people can afford to spend money on premium content if they wish.

What are the prices that work best in a virtual currency?

This really comes down to the type of transaction the consumer is engaged in. If a user wants to quickly build another level of their pyramid in our Call of the Pharaoh game, they are completely willing to spend a dime several times a day. If we're talking about a rare pet that the user owns forever, consumers will spend several dollars without blinking. The same holds true for designer clothes for their avatars.

But not all users care as much about gaming advantages and not all users care about having hot looking avatars. You really have to segment your market and know how to right-price things for those segments.

This week has seen the launch of ngmoco's Eliminate on the App Store, which is the first big iPhone freemium game. Do you think the iPhone is good platform for these sort of games?

Sure. The iPhone offers a great user experience - although I'm not saying this is true for first person shooters - which is why we see lots of traffic on that device.

But anyone can build a game to work on one platform. The trick is letting someone who's playing on an iPhone in San Francisco have real-time combat in Space Wars with someone who's in Ireland on a mid-range Nokia. We're doing that right now, and we'll be impressed when ngmoco catches up.

Will you to take FunCoins onto iPhone?

We have iPhone users buying FunCoins right now. In fact, they've been doing it for months via premium SMS.

What figures can you provide in terms of the percentage of players who buy FunCoins with real money?

The percentage of players who buy FunCoins is very high; higher than what's been reported by PC-based virtual worlds.

Why do you think people seem happier spending many small amounts of money rather than one large upfront amount?

I think there a number of factors at play, but for casual games - and I use that word for lack of a better one - users often consume the content in snackable play sessions.

By letting users pay as they go, they get to be in control of the experience. They can turn the spigot on and off depending on their mood, how much time they have to play, etc. This is empowering to the user and helps to keep them coming back and inviting friends to play with them.

Keep in mind that you don't want the user to part with real money each time they play your game; you want them to spend a chunk of real money once or twice a month and then parcel out the virtual currency they've earned over time. Otherwise, they don't feel pleasure during each gaming session - they feel tiny pin pricks of pain. This is the same reason casinos get you to buy poker chips. If you had to put down real cash each hand, it would be psychologically painful.

Thanks to Keith for his time.

You can connect to Cellufun's mobile portal at wap.cellufun.com or online at cellufun.com.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.