Old Web idea of micropayments finally finds a home by Paulina Neshybova

In recent months there has been a huge expansion of microtransactions for buying virtual items. For example, IMVU Inc. Gains every month for such payments about $1 million.
It is mainly kids and teenagers now who are buying them, and five dollars a month is not much at all. But through this money a kid can buy clothes, accessories or even eyes of various shape and color. More concretely, for 29 cents a kid can buy a set of whatever color of the eyes , for more it can even but a virtual baby.
This idea began in 1990s, but atthat time it had not become successful because buyers has to buy things in small portions by a small amount of money which was not convenient for them.But noe the creators of virtual games and worlds are on their way. The advantage now is, that customers but a chunk a money or credit which they can normally bu in stores like Target for $5 to $25 at a time. Ther users then can spent just a little amount of their credit for whatever they want and they do not have to pay for each item separately.
For instance South Korea's Nexon Corp was founded in 1994. Now they are expanding to North America . Their business lies on giving away games that are for free and selling items to be the game a little moreexciting for the player. This year the have launched "SugarRush", a game made especially for north american customers.
Also other companies are now beeing noticed, as for example Electronic Arts Inc. As they say, the potential for microtransaction is now huge and it will for sure expand in the coming years.


related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080907/ap_on_hi_te/games_micropayments;_ylt=ArZC1mj5Bg5aX4D.BO.eJnis0NUE

by Paulina Neshybova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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