Online Gaming and Payment Providers

Another interesting post from Adam Martin who is starting a MMOG company.

You (a game developer) can avail of several payment mechanisms including credit cards, PayPal, pre-pay cards.  Adam believes that pre-pay cards will become popular because of the convenience and security they provide.

Service providers have historically been very poor at handling your customer’s money in a secure way, leading to serious customer dissatisfaction and  loss of trust:

Ultimately, it could drive increasing numbers of consumers back to preferring to purchase their games and other online content via retail, where the companies and transactions are more trustworthy. OH, THE IRONY!

The knock on effects include:

• Good companies get tarred with the same brush (c.f. Daniel James frequent comments about the pain that Three Rings has been through with payment-processing, especially ridiculous attitudes to chargebacks, where the company regularly got shafted)
• Good customers stop paying for your service, and probably quit the service completely
• “could-have-been”customers stop paying for ANY online services before they even start using your service, and will never pay for yours
• Pre-paycards are going to get even bigger, much bigger than most mainstream games companies and MMO companies have realised

Brick and mortar as well as online businesses have become successful at retaining customers by ensuring that they remain satisfied with their  purchase, derive value from it and come back to buy more. Customer satisfaction builds the momentum that drives the flywheel for the growth of a business. The lesson is to choose a payment provider who cares about his brand and has a track record for upholding customer satisfaction. Yes, it may cost you more but the results will pay you back for the premium.

Sumit

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