Facebook credits available as retail giftcards
It’s amazing what you can buy in Target these days. The chain is now letting customers buy farmland or even a trip to see a Mafia godfather.
That’s because the chain will, from Sunday, be the first retailer to sell gift cards that give the recipient Facebook Credits. Those are the social network’s quasi-currency that is mainly used for purchases within games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars.
The move is part of Facebook’s plan to establish the system as a single way to pay for all applications which charge fees for some features. The theory is that users will be more confident about giving their cash to Facebook than individual developers.
The Target deal takes that a step further and means even friends and relatives who don’t even go online can spend money at a trusted store to help their little darlings fight off weeds or wiseguys.
Target stores and websites will sell cards in $15, $25 and $50 form. Although no other physical retail stores carry the cards yet, the $15 option will be exclusive to Target. (The $25 and $50 options can be bought from other online retailers.)
Some of the companies hosting games on Facebook already offer ways to buy game credit in person, though these are limited to each company’s own games. Zynga, the company behind FarmVille and Mafia Wars ran a promotion with 7-11 where customers could get redemption codes for game credit.
Meanwhile, to make things even more confusing, a Malaysian company has its own system of credit which can be bought in physical outlets around the world and then exchanged for Facebook credits.
The details of this system, MOLPoints, means it’s actually possible to open an online bank account, use to Western Union to transfer this money to buy MOLPoints, exchange these points for Facebook credits, then spend the credits buying virtual land for growing virtual crops.
I don’t know if this really improves the gaming experience, but it sure sounds like a recipe for money laundering to me.
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July 11th, 2011
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