Social Game service Zynga has teamed up with Bitpay to start accepting cryptocurrencies as payment methods for their web browse games it confirms in an official post on Reddit. Among these games are Farmville 2, CastleVille, ChefVille, CoasterVille, Hidden Chronicles, Hidden Shadows, and CityVille.
As of now, the feature will be launched worldwide but we don’t know exactly which countries. The fact that Zynga now accepts Bitcoin as payment makes it the world’s first gaming developing company to do so. Zynga is going to use bitcoin as a strategy to boost in-game purchases which count for over 72% of all the revenue generated by mobile games. Here are some in-game images of how the payment method will work showing as a payment option “bitcoin”
It will then proceed to show a QR code and give the instructions required to read the Bitcoin QR code
As of now Zynga sees the integration of bitcoin as a “test” and could be removed if proven unsuccessful. They have chosen Bitpay as their payment method, Bitpay has been called the “PayPal of Bitcoin” and made over $100 million in transactions in 2013. Accepting cryptocurrencies as an official payment method is something we expect to see much more in online games in 2014.
As of now Zynga only accepts bitcoins in their web browser-based games but we expect them to launch the same system for their mobile apps in the future.
Update 1: Youtuber Anthony Di Iorio has uploaded a video showing off the in-game purchase system and shows how easy it is to use bitcoins to make a purchase.
