Sometrics launches Game Coins virtual goods market for games (exclusive)

Sometrics is launching its Game Coins virtual goods market Monday to help game publishers monetize their games across a number of game platforms.

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Those who visit the market’s GameCoins.com web site can earn or purchase virtual currency to spend in their games. Ian Swanson, chief executive of the El Segundo, Calif.-based company, said it is trying to set itself apart from rivals such as Offerpal’s GamePoints or Playspan by making the integration of its platform easy for publishers and seamless for consumers.

The site will be fully functional on Monday. Users can earn virtual currency by doing things like writing strategy guides for games or posting articles about them. They can also earn coins by completing missions within games, or they can fill out surveys and complete offers. They can then exchange the Game Coins for the currency of a particular game when they want to spend it.

The company streamlines the way that virtual currency is integrated into games so that users don’t have to enter a code to activate it. Companies using Game Coins today include virtual chat room firm IMVU, and online game firms NHN, GameDuell and GamersFirst.

Sometrics already has a lot of clients because for the past year it has operated an offer business. In free-to-play games, users play for free but pay real money for virtual goods. They can still get the virtual goods without paying by fulfilling ads known as offers. With an offer, you can sign up for a Netflix subscription, for example, and thereby earn your virtual goods. In this business, Sometrics competes with Offerpal Media, SuperRewards, TrialPay and others.

Sometrics has tried to simplify its solution for game publishers, offering them a one-stop shop. If the game publishers integrate Sometrics’ platform into their games, then they can generate additional revenue from gamers who don’t want to pay for virtual goods with credit cards or other payment types.

Now Sometrics is tapping its relationships with publishers to offer them the new Game Coins virtual goods market. Gamers can go to the site and participate in raffles and do missions that can earn them virtual currency to spend in their favorite games. That helps the game publishers acquire users through new marketing channels.

So far, Sometrics is working with 200 game companies for its offer business such as Nexon, PopCap Games, IMVU, NHN, Playdom, K2 Network and others. Those game companies have more than 175 million users who could take advantage of the Game Coins.

Sometrics was founded in 2007 by Swanson and Joseph Hsieh and Matt Gray and now has 30 employees. The company received capital from the Mail Room Fund, an investment consortium created by the William Morris Talent Agency, Accel Partners and Venrock. It also raised money from AT&T, Greycroft Partners, and Steamboat Ventures. Full told, it has raised $6 million.

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Swanson said the company did a quiet beta test of its Game Coins community in March. The company’s target publisher partners operate social games, massively multiplayer online games, and virtual worlds.