Posts Tagged ‘Foogoo’

Fatfoogoo goes b2b with bbq flava

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

Focusing not only on the needs of the player alone, after careful research and consideration, your favorite foogoos are now opening the doors to partnerships with individual game publishers. No worries, the current state of fatfoogoo isn’t going anywhere, and we’ve still got your back for all things trading. We’ve simply added another dish to the menu.

We took a long hard look at not only the technologies that we’ve developed in house, the experience and knowledge that we’ve gained, but also at what players and publishers across the world are looking for in a gaming experience. Combine that with the current state of the industry and the tremendous interest and revenue streams in the micro transaction field, adding the fatfoogoo partnership program was a no brainer.

In a recent interview fatfoogoo CEO Martin Herdina sites, “The trading and selling of virtual assets is truly the future of online gaming. It is an important alternative business model to the classical subscription fee-based programs that are currently dominating the industry. Fatfoogoo looks to fulfill a demand for this market. Our new Partnership program enables us to provide the best of both worlds: Primary Market trading, i.e. Publisher to Player and Secondary Market Trading, i.e. Player to Player trading. With the incredible growth of both primary and secondary trading markets, most major publishers understand that there is a need for an independently operated, fair and secure marketplace for virtual goods and services.”

And what a demand it is. The secondary trading market for virtual assets alone is currently growing at astonishing rates, going from revenues of approximately $1 billion in 2006 to an expected $7 billion in 2009, according to Nielsen.

This model has already been proven in Asia with Maple Story and Kartrider, both published by Nexon games. Research has shown that 8%-30% of all players purchase items via micro transactions. This in turn results in a higher revenue stream for publishers as opposed to the traditional subscription fee model. According to industry experts, on average, ‘Free to Play’ games generate anywhere between $15-$20/month. In the April edition of Fortune Magazine, senior writer Devin Leonard weighed in on the future of gaming:

(Game Publisher) Nexon pioneered this business – hooking players with a seductive free game while urging them at every turn to purchase extras using prepaid debit cards sold at retail outlets like Target. Nexon collects ad revenue in overseas markets, but in the United States the big money so far is in these microtransactions: $1.6 million a month. John Chi, CEO of Nexon America, says that the Nexon card is the second-best-selling prepaid card at Target – after the iTunes card. (Target will say only that Nexon cards are “doing really well.”)

Our experience in the virtual world micro transaction field is unparalleled. Not only have we created a multilingual platform, currency, taxation, and support system, but also gained real life experience and have weeded out a lot of headaches. As with anything in life, nothing is 100% certain, but here at the foogoo, we’ve already dealt with a whole number of things that could go wrong, have fixed them, and have learned from them. No other system in the world can match our level of multi national experience.

Back at the top-secret underground foogoo labs, our partnership engineers are already hard at work developing solutions for clients. Stay tuned, as we’ll be announcing some of our exciting partnerships soon!

 

Fatfoogoos off to Londontown

Thursday, May 29th, 2008

Yes that’s right ladies and gentlemen, fatfoogoo is heading to the land of fish and chips, one seriously big clock, and drivers on the wrong side of the road.

Last year over 450 attendees from 23 countries descended upon the Virtual Worlds Forum Europe in London. With over 80 speakers, 2 days of workshops, conferences, expos and networking functions this was THE conference to be at.

This year’s event looks to meet and exceed expectations. With over 600+ professionals interviewed regarding content, take home podcasts, demo and keynote theatre as well as tech developer streams, that’s enough alone to make one shout ‘Blimey!’. But wait….there’s more! Building upon the overwhelming success of the expo area, this year’s Forum includes stands from 25 exhibitors, a shell build scheme, previously mentioned demo and keynote theatre live and in person on the demo floor, live tech developer streams, and 400+ expo only passes.

Direct from Virtual Worlds Forum:

VWF 08 helps you harness the power of virtual worlds to engage with clients, suppliers or customers, connecting brands, corporations, digital and virtual worlds agencies, entertainment and games companies, technologists, academics, regulators and VCs.

We are working on bringing you a bigger expo, more great content and workshops, and parties. We like to party.

Funny…we like to party too!

Our beloved fatfoogoos are raiding London this 6-7 October, are already registered as Associate Sponsors, and our very own Martin Herdina has applied for a speaker placement. Alas, the VWF hasn’t gotten back to us quite yet, but if placement if based on knowledge, experience and all around ‘He’s a good guy to listen to, and knows his stuff’; Herdina’s headed to the podium mighty fast.

 

Pimp my Reverse Auction!

Monday, April 21st, 2008

Although it’s not even May yet, fatfoogoo’s got some new stuff happening. Launched today, we’re introducing our brand spankin’ new ‘Reverse Auction’ feature, along with a bunch of smaller usability updates.

The most important innovation: Reverse Auctioning. Reverse Auctioning is perfectly suited to find specific items and services (need the rest of this). As everyone knows, the price is not always everything. The more expensive seller may have a better rating and a better reputation with buyers. The decision of lower price vs. dependability is left up to the buyer to decide.

Also fresh from the Fatfoogoo program labs are the Reverse Auction notifications. These notifications keep you up to date on your auctions, let you know who’s been underbid, and if you want, the system will even send you an email so that you can update your bids. The potential buyer is also updated via email, if he should so choose, as soon as a new bid arrives. As soon as the order arrives, if the price and service work for him, the buyer can decide to immediately end the Reverse Auction prematurely. On the other hand, if the auction time has expired, the buyer must then decide on one of the suppliers. Only if a suitable choice has not presented itself, the most favorable supplier (i.e. the one with the lowest price) automatically wins the Reverse Auction. We’ve also added a new feature to the auction radar: an automatic searching filter for Reverse Auctions that you can customize in your profile settings.

The Reverse Auction feature is the most important innovation at the Foogoo right now, but what about those other new features I mentioned? Well, you’ll notice that the registration area has some shiny new graphics, users mini profiles can now be seen in a floatover feature while in a list view, and starting today, we’re now supporting auctions for Papermint gameplay.

Our support team is always around to answer any questions you might have about the Player 2 Player marketplace. Our doors are always open for your feedback and suggestions!