Kansas City based digital game store Coinplay.io has launched game bundles to help developers sell more copies of their games.
In March, Coinplay.io launched a brand new website ahead of their demo day pitch at BetaBlox, a Kansas City based startup incubator. At the event, Shane Park, CEO and co-founder of Coinplay.io, explained to a combined audience of 1,500 attendees over two days the aim of their business: to make selling PC games better.
Although the digital game store was originally concepted in March 2014 to sell PC games to consumers using various cryptocurrencies such as BitCoin, LiteCoin, and DogeCoin, extensive customer validation and mentoring from BetaBlox has helped the company narrow in on game bundles as their most lucrative first step.
“Before BetaBlox, everything I thought about business was just an assumption. Most businesses are a series of assumptions strung together,” said Park. “What BetaBlox did is teach us lean startup principles and challenged us with mentor lectures. It retrained us how to think and made us want to iterate. We put our product out there and get feedback on it.”
It was that feedback that has helped Coinplay.io to secure partnerships with several independent developers, as well as publishers and distributors. The store has been tracking user data meticulously and aims to sell over 10,000 copies by the end of the year.
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“We weren’t even bookmarked by most people,” said Park. “Now that we sell games in bundles things have changed.”
The future is in the bundles
The fact that Coinplay.io accepts many types of digital currencies is still a strong differentiator even though other digital stores are doing the same.
“Half of our competitors accept BitCoin,” said Park. “Newegg and Dell accept it. It’s easier to do that now than ever before.”
Coinplay.io’s first game bundle sale included 10 total games broken into 3 separate tiers: $3
for 5 games; $4 for 8 games; and $5 for all 10 games.
Their second bundle is scheduled for July 17.
“The response from the developers we’ve approached has been encouraging, and we’re excited to be providing a sales opportunity that game developers are interested in,” said Park.
Coinplay.io hearts indie developers
Their focus is on connecting consumers to an innovative developer base at an affordable price point. Although Park believes that Coinplay.io could sell AAA games in the far future, the store’s focus has always been on independent developers.
Park himself started an independent mobile games studio five years ago and released 8 titles. He believes his passion and personal connection to independent games makes him a better partner to help sell and distribute them.
“Some of the best games I’ve played were independent games,” said Park. “Independent game developers work really hard for what may or not pay off in the end, but it’s passion that drives them. I love that.”
Battling the grey market for games
To make partnerships more attractive to independent developers and thus provide more games to consumers, Coinplay.io develops strong relationships with game makers and listens to their concerns. Coinplay.io has already dealt with significant challenges, such as when the European Union announced that all developers selling their games via digital distribution would be subject to VAT taxation.
“Our developer partners said, ‘If you don’t handle it, it will be a huge problem,’” said Park. “I’m an accountant, and I knew we can’t just ignore these regulations. I said, ‘We have to do this. We’ll find a way.’”
This commitment to listening to the needs of developers and consumers alike makes Park and his team unique. The grey market, for example, is a place where online sites scalp digital keys to sell games at prices much lower than the developers intended. Coinplay.io, however, aims to protect developers from these types of sites.
“Our service is based in integrity. It’s harder up front, but better for everyone involved.”
