Virtual currency

In this day and age, many companies are generating revenue from social media such as Facebook, but how many of us know how this goes? Let’s imagine that you are a game application developer and you have built a Facebook application. The users (gamers) have to collect “gold coins” (virtual currency) to purchase the tools and equipments (land and weapons) in the game. According to Fazal H (2009), companies for instance, Adparlor, Super Rewards, and OfferPal provide an alternative for the users to get those “gold coins” through mobile phone or completing a survey. Therefore, you as the developer will make real money from there. Besides that, Farmville and Mafia Wars game makers are also making money once the users sign up for trial versions of the software (Quenqua D, 2009).  

Virtual currency seems to be a well-known terms for online gamer as it is the money that used by gamer to purchase goods and services in the game and the value of virtual currency is equivalent to the cash in real world. For example, the @cash in Maple Story can be used for maplers to purchase items in Cash Shop such as weapons, clothes, pets, equipments, hair coupon and others. This enables players to design the character in game with fancy and attractive clothing and outlook.

References:

Quenqua D, Injecting advertisers into the market for virtual currency 2009, viewed 7 September 2010,  http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/1703596/injecting-advertisers-into-market-virtual-currency

Fazal H, Virtual currency monetization 2009, viewed 7 September 2010,  http://www.socialadblog.com/2009/06/virtual-currency-monetization.html

(MapleSEA) cash shop surprise (2009), viewed 6 September 2010, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_I9ICWIF_Y&feature=related