Kuala Lumpur – Interesting panel discussion about the Future of Mobile Payments happened today at this year’s Level Up KL, spearheaded and organized by MDEC held at Connexion@Nexus in Bangsar South, Kuala Lumpur Malaysia. Led by Johary Mustapha (CEO of Forest Interactive) as moderator, they tackled the emerging essence of mobile payments in the gaming industry as well as broaching the subject of security and on how mobile games compliment PC games. Among the panelists are distinguished tech champions in mobile games publishing and payment namely: Preecha Praipattarakul of MOL Global, Karim Abdul Malik of Axiata Digital and Johnson Lim of Elite Mobile Global.
For those not familiar with mobile payment, it is giving users the ability to pay for intangible items such as game vouchers using their mobile credits, it is also commonly known as DCB or direct carrier billing. Current regulation, however, states that it cannot be used to purchase physical goods thus serves as an alternative to non-cash (debit, credit, prepaid cards) and cash payments mostly for online entertainment and games.
All three panelists are engaged in mobile games publishing and payment, Axiata, a big player in the telecommunications industry offers a platform where game developers can publish and monetize. Johnson Lim of Elite Mobile shares that their top selling games in SouthEast Asia are strategy games but apart from that, they also see potential in games that offer social value. In terms of regional popularity, however, MOL’s Preecha Praipattarakul says each country has its own character and that “it depends on a game’s quality, but as long it’s good, it will be successful.”
In the area of game development monetization, however, Johary Mustapha of Forest Interactive asked: “How do you make a gamer actually pay for your game?”
- You integrate in-game content to monetize. Some games use the VIP model which allows the player to have higher scores or reach more levels when they pay.
- You have to have a game that has value for money, and offer a payment gateway that is convenient to use, and is secure.
- You give gamers the efficiency of getting payment (i.e. cybercafe, payment kiosks that are 5minutes from users, online banking)
During the Q&A, one of the attendees asked how the payment behaviour will be like 3 years down the road with the rise of cryptocurrency in the tech ecosystem. Karim Abdul Malik of Axiata responds by acknowledging the emergence of this new form of payment hence emphasized that DCB will still go forward. With the technology that is being explored worldwide, this form of payment is going to be a lot easier and he reckons that in the future “you can pay for anything with a single account.” The rest of the speakers add that though cryptocurrency is a great innovation and its value is rising very fast, there are still issues and concerns that need to be addressed for it to overtake other forms of currencies.
Forest Interactive CSR Project Broadcasted
Forest Interactive proudly partnered with MDEC for the project LEVELUP@SCHOOLS in Kelantan. The idea of this initiative was to gear up the game industry in Malaysia by introducing the game development process to 30 students from 15 high schools across the Kelantan region.
Forest Interactive’s video was broadcasted to the attendees of Level Up KL 2017 during the closing ceremony.
About Level Up KL :
Level Up KL is among the largest games development conference in the region featuring game development content, workshops, B2B meetings, exhibits from key players in the industry, keynotes, and high-level sessions with esteemed panel speakers from all over the world. It runs for six days in its 3rd year.
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About Forest Interactive:
Established in 2006, our headquarters is located in the center of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia with global operations across 36 countries. Throughout its inception, the company has entrenched itself to play an important part within the vibrant mobile industry, working closely with Mobile Network Operators, Industry Regulators, Government Agencies, Consumer Groups and related associations in ensuring as well as enabling innovative solutions for the mobile ecosystem. We have established a competitive portfolio of end-to-end solutions for our telco, enterprise and content partners that reach out to more than 2.9B subscribers worldwide and has already partnered with over 100 corporate clients and 93 mobile operators across Asia, the Middle-East and the USA.
For further inquiries, get in touch with us, we’d love to hear from you!
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Website: http://www.forest-interactive.com
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