Discontinuation of MetaCard: What’s Next for First Meta?

Last Updated on Saturday, 13 March 2010 07:40 Written by Se7en Wirsing Tuesday, 02 March 2010 00:48

For those of you who are familiar with the MetaCard, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise the card is being discontinued by First Meta. Launched in July 2007, the card was the first of its kind, a credit card for virtual world currency. Usage of the card has slowed to a crawl recently due to the real world and Second Life® economies. Although merchants accepted the card, consumers have had little interest.

The reason for discontinuation given in the announcement at http://www.firstmeta.com/public/MCannounce.html, is, “After 2.5 very exciting years of working and experimentation with MetaCard, we have concluded that it is currently neither viable nor critical to provide a credit card product in virtual economies, and thus MetaCard will be discontinued on 28 February.” The announcement includes information about how to pay outstanding balances and what to do with ATMs inworld. Merchants are advised to keep the ATMs available on their sims, as a way to receive referral bonuses for people who register for the First Meta Exchange, the new service.

The innovative and award-winning team at First Meta (lead by CEO Douglas Abrams) has the business sense to change direction and put efforts into services expected to “continue on our mission to create and provide sound, sustainable and valuable financial products for virtual economies.” They have been reported about in international media, such as TechCrunch, Business Week and the BBC.

With that vision, First Meta launched a multi-world virtual currency exchange, the First Meta Exchange (FMX) Beta, in August 2009. The exchange facilitates currency exchange between Second Life, Toribash, IMVU and Frenzoo. If you are a user of more than one of these virtual worlds, you can use the exchange to convert, for example, Lindens to Toricredits. You can even exchange US dollars and Euros for virtual world currencies. FMX is accessible at http://firstmetaexchange.com/home and inworld at FMX ATMs. If you want to access an ATM inworld, the SLurls are listed at http://www.firstmeta.com/consumers/atms.

According to First Meta, the benefits are best exchange rate, transparent pricing, no concerns about fraud and acceptance by the virtual worlds. It is also touted as simple to use by linking your existing avatar(s) from any of the four worlds supported. All your avatars can be linked conveniently into one account. And, you can send a gift to a friend, even if he isn’t linked into FMX.

First Meta Appeals to Game Publishers

FMX offers a player-to-player virtual asset trading platform. The platform includes the virtual currency exchange and a marketplace for virtual items and characters. First Meta has stated there is a 70% growth in user spending as a result of FMX use and a 35% conversion rate into revenue-generating users. This maximizes profits and minimizes fraud for the publishers, but what does it mean to the individual user? For now, the user is able to easily exchange currencies but in the future he will search the marketplace and purchase items for the virtual world. It sounds like a good deal all around.