A. eWallet – the ability to have an account with stored value of virtual currency or cash
a. Account management capability
1. User has a balance of virtual units from which to credit through purchase
2. Credit through XP (experience points)
3. Credit through unique Offers/Promotions/PIN codes
4. Decrement through purchase
5. Decrement via expiration of assets or currency, based on expiration business rules
6. Ability for user to view all the transaction details of purchases in a self-service tool
7. Ability for users to edit user information in a self-service tool
8. Ability for users to up/cross-sell their plans (subscription based) via a self-service tool
b. Ability for CSRs to view accounts
c. Ability for CSRs to edit accounts
d. Ability for CSRs to modify account details
e. Ability for CSRs to view/edit/modify purchases
f. Ability for CSRs to view/edit/modify attributes related to Promotions/Offers/PIN codes
B. Characteristics of virtual points
a. Paid Value
b. Redeemed Value
c. Existing Balance
d. Running balance
e. Expiration of points
f. Descriptive Text of what the points are associated to as they are ‘gifted’
g. Descriptive Text of what the points are associated to if purchased
C. Are these characteristics associated with specific point purchases?
a. Points purchased will reside in an eWallet until such time as the points are used to buy virtual items.
b. The reporting part of our solution shows the purchase and characteristics of the points in the CSR tool and account management tool.
c. There are dependencies on FIFO below for example (see below)
D. What redemption orders are supported (such as FIFO, LIFO, high point value first), etc.?
a. FIFO / first-in-first-out)
E. e-Wallet Marketing Promotions
a. PIN Codes/Promotions/Offers that have 3 common characteristics;
i. A unique code can be issued to each individual user
ii. A unique code can be issued across all users (measure conversion)
iii. Both can be set to expire after a number of uses or after an elapsed time period
b. Gifting virtual items
i. From the to the user
ii. From family members (or sponsor) to a user
c. Promotional points (with 0 paid value) to customers with a short-term expiration date.
d. Can promotional points be good only for specific item purchases
i. You can create multiple ‘types’ of points and allocate promotional points for specific types of products or purchases.
1. Unique products or goods would be mapped to a specific type of "point"
e. Promotional points be stored/displayed separately to customers?
i. Yes they can be displayed in User Self Service module leveraging our APIs or via the CSR tool.
f. Can Aria grant bonus points in addition to the purchased points based on the payment method used, purchase date, etc.?
i. This is possible via a service request or leveraging our APIs.
g. Status Levels - business rules that are associated with 'status' so as a user gains greater status the business rules state 'you must accomplish A XP or activity level before you can have access to B status'
F. e-Wallet Account Management
a. Account management requires the ability to have stored;
i. User credentials
ii. Payment details
iii. Unique attributes by game type or user entitlement
iv. User Access to individual transaction history on-demand
v. User Access to view, make changes or change types of service
1. Example: if a user has a BRONZE level subscription, in the User Access tool, they can upgrade their service to SILVER or GOLD
2. If you want to issue a PIN code that automatically provides a ‘one-class would trigger a provisioning hit to the game to denote the change of status from BRONZE to SILVER.
G. Virtual to Physical Goods
a. Cross-over from virtual item to retail
i. Virtual items that are either offered or created in world/game can be purchased as a physical product and shipped to the user
H. Retail to Virtual
a. Physical products that are sold in a retail outlet with a PIN code that the user enters and transports the attributes of the physical product in-game/world.
b. Retail partnerships whereby a partner creates unique, branded content for your world to highlight specific offers or alliances
I. Micropayments (2 common methods)
a. True micro payments that involve incremental payments of real currency for virtual items, with the associated risks that aggregation cannot counter if a user doesn't buy enough items, thereby eroding margin from transaction fees.
b. Purchase a pre-set amount of currency at a larger purchase price (say $5 for 500 pieces of virtual currency) and then enable micro payments that are virtual-currency-for-virtual-item and doesn't involve transaction fees from payment processors.
i. Aria can aggregate micro payments monthly
J. Virtual Market Sales
a. Primary Market
i. Sale of virtual items from publisher to gamer. Costs tend to be upwards of 10% of the gross revenue unless you find a more strategic offering.
ii. Aria can deliver to you our e-Wallet + virtual storefront (primary market) with these attributes;
1. Far less costly
2. More payment methods and localized currencies
3. More flexibility for various currencies/games
4. FULLY end-to-end PCI compliant
5. Full catalogue and asset/sub-asset class management
b. Secondary Market
i. Sale of virtual items between gamers. Costs tend to be upwards of 20% of gross revenue, and games need to decide if the risks (farming, potential negative game experience etc) are worth the upside.
ii. Ability to offer items on a 3rd party site
K. Cross-Game Virtual Currency
a. Allow experience points or currency bought/earned to be used in another game aside from the primary game experience.
i. Individual transaction details are captured at the user level in the self service tool
ii. Individual transactions details are captured at the Admin level and viewable/changeable via the Admin Portal
iii. Aria accommodates as many games as desired provided the exchange rate is consistent
1. Should you wish to offer varying exchange rates, this can either be developed or we can integrate a partner solution for immediate release
2.
L. Stored Value Retail Cards & Payment Processors
a. INCOMM
b. BlackHawk
c. Ultimate Game Card
i. Unique PIN codes can be created by you, the merchant or Aria
ii. Stored value cards purchased in retail outlets can have unique attributes or promotions attached to them to drive foot traffic to retail locations
iii. PIN codes are uploaded into Aria so that we recognize the value of the PIN and any unique attributes
d. PayPal
e. Credit Cards
i. Note: one end-to-end solution allows for;
1. Consolidated reporting of ALL transactions regardless of which payment channel the transaction was paid/funded through
2. Ease of use by CSRs, as the Aria solution provides all transactional details regardless of the payment processor
3. ALL data is exportable via CSV to your native accounting system of record, eliminating the need to take reports from disparate payment systems and merge them together for your business reporting.
f. International Expansion – Aria solution currently bills in 236 countries and has the capacity to accept 178 currencies.
i. What this means – accepting localized payment methods in each country spur conversion (new revenue) and retention (reduced churn)
M. Affiliate Capability
a. Offer your game or ensuing products;
i. Via unique channels
ii. Via unique user groups
iii. Via unique geographically based groupings
iv. With unique business rules or conditions that conform with the contracted conditions between the and partner
v. Measure the performance of channels or partners
N. 'Recommender' Type Logic (storefront)
a. User logs in and is presented with most popular items purchased by:
i. Character class
ii. Period of time
iii. Demographic characteristics
1. Any info that is captured and passed can be reported on and used for demographic and marketing purposes
2. Example – what percentage of a certain age group bought a unique virtual asset
O. Revenue Recognition
a. Cash SPENT for virtual units
b. Virtual units purchased
c. Virtual units SPENT for virtual items
d. Virtual items PURCHASED
e. Running balance
i. In addition to RevRec reporting you have full access to all of the transactional details and can break out your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) as desired for dashboard metrics that are presented based on the users access levels upon logging in.
P. Reporting
a. All data that resides in the system can be reported upon.
b. A standard integration includes setting you up with custom reporting that you want/desire to help run your business.
c. For example (and there are many, so this is but a sampling):
i. What % of users bought the GOLD Tiara vs. the PLATINUM Tiara
ii. What % of 12-14 year olds ‘bought’ XYZ virtual item
iii. What are the most popular virtual items sold
Q. One-time Purchase + Subscription Capability
a. Recurring types of service plans (subscriptions)
i. Dunning rules apply
ii. Retry logic for failed recurring purchase attempts
b. Recurring types of one-time purchases
i. Not subscription\ are initiated by the user at any given time period
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