Heyzap adds option to pay game developers with Bitcoin

If you’re a game developer and you want to make some coin — Bitcoin that is — you’re in luck.

Heyzap, which makes tools to help game developers encourage players promote their games (by checking in or earning badges, for instance), announced last night that it would offer the option for developers who earn money from Heyzap’s advertising platform to receive payment in Bitcoin. Developers can also use Bitcoin to pay for ad campaigns they buy on Heyzap’s network.

“We have some developers in countries that don’t accept Paypal, so Bitcoin makes sense to be able to pay them out,” Heyzap co-founder Jude Gomila told VentureBeat. “Also, some developers just want to be paid in Bitcoin rather than USD.”

Bitcoin is an increasingly popular all-digital currency. The value of a single Bitcoin has rocketed up recently, from $30 in June 2011 to over $100 per Bitcoin as of April 1. However, a string of hacks and a recent denial-of-service attack directed at the largest Bitcoin exchange, Mt. Gox, have plagued the currency, and as a result its value has been highly volatile. Also untested is how federal governments around the world will feel about an untraceable, decentralized, completely electronic currency.

Gomila said that developers have to fill out a W9 (if they are in the USA) or a W-8BEN (if they are outside the USA) before they receive any payments from Heyzap, regardless of the currency. “This allows the IRS to keep track of the payments and is the same for any form of payment above around $600.”

Despite the volatility, lots of companies have offered to make or accept payments in Bitcoin recently, including WordPress.com. A Finnish web development firm, SC5, is even offering to pay its employees in Bitcoin.

Updated 11:15am Pacific with comments from Gomila.

Photo credit: Zach Copley/Flickr