As more games on the web begin to embrace virtual currency, users often run into the same problem: they’ve racked up mountains of whatever currency they’ve been playing with, but then don’t have a way to actually do anything with it outside of that game. Sure, they can always buy the latest tractor or weapon to arrive in their game, but at some point that gets old and they’re ready to cash out and move on to something new. Enter Bodega, a new platform that’s looking to help users swap virtual goods and currencies across different games, and even across different social networks.
Bodega lets users sell their virtual goods at auction in return for for Bodega’s own currency, the Bodega Bill. When you go to sell your virtual goods, you can either put it up as a ‘buy it now’ style purchase or an auction, with a minimum reserve if you want. Users looking to purchase virtual goods can obtain Bodega Bills by completing offers, buying them with their credit cards, or by selling their own virtual goods in the marketplace. You can also earn Bodega Bills by completing actions on the site, like adding another user as a friend or listing an item for sale.
Of course, actually executing these transactions is difficult, because none of these games have any of this functionality built in. To work around this, Bodega holds the buyer’s Bodega Bills in escrow until there is confirmation from both users involved with the transaction that the virtual good has actually been received. This system does have the upside of allowing the platform to work across multiple social networks and platforms (Bodega is currently available on Facebook with plans to launch on MySpace, Bebo, and the iPhone soon), but it’s not the ideal situation. CEO Mark Sendo says that the company is currently in discussions with a number of big games in this space, in the hopes of integrating an API into the games themselves that would negate much of the hassle associated with the transactions, but it sounds like it may be a while before any big deals come to fruition.
Once you’ve earned some Bodega Bills, you can use them to purchase other virtual goods (so you could potentially buy points on another game or social network), or you can trade them in for cash — something that sounds like it could be especially appealing to gamers who are looking to turn their online wealth into something a bit more tangible. Sendo says that the amount of money paid out will be established by the market (the actual conversion rate will likely play a big role in how quickly Bodega catches on).
Virtual currency marketplaces have always been a tricky area, rife with scammers, so-called ‘gold farmers’, and fraud (there’s a reason eBay has largely banned them). But that doesn’t negate the fact that there are lots of people who’d like to sell their virtual goods. Bodega is going to be fighting a long uphill battle here, but if it can pull off a unified, safe platform, there’s plenty of money to be made.
Bodega rose from the ashes of urTurn, a startup we covered last year that looked to reward users for their actions on Facebook. It’s worth pointing out that Sendo was convicted of wire fraud a decade ago and was later forced to wrangle with the SEC over violations involved with InternetMoney.com (Sendo settled by agreeing never to deal with penny stocks).
I’ve Used this App its pretty neat and found it useful because I dont use farmville and not knowing what to do with my points. I give it a great rating.
I’ve used Bodega, Its a neat app
What will make them succeed (not like urturn which I used) is that they must have plenty of buyer, not only sellers. The problem with UrTurn was that everybody was selling and no one was buying.
“Users looking to purchase virtual goods can obtain Bodega Bills by completing offers”. Will this be scammy offers like quoted in your previous articles about how games platform added offers to their platform to allow user to get more coins or whatever currency they used on the platform.
And thirdly, as user will be able to cash money for virtual currency, will it not be considered as gambling by some countries?! (as covered in one of your previous articles).
“Users looking to purchase virtual goods can obtain Bodega Bills by completing offers”
You caught that too, eh?
yes. and the offers are the same as the games. they need to be cleaned up.
Completing offers isn’t the only way to earn Bodega Bills anymore, you can list your virtual items and stuff for whatever price you think it is worth and earn them that way as well. Pretty neat I think. I gave them a good rating.
Hmmm… if I take a look at one of the most underrated games out there: runescape, they have been fighting against these kind of users for ages (successfully, last time I heard about the game real money trading had become totally impossible), so I don’t really see other games suddenly going the exact opposite way…
There is no way to transfer points between players in any of these games – so users can sell their points through Bodega – where do the points/Farmville dollars/etc. go? How do the points get to the buyers? Unless there are partnerships with the game developers – and it sounds like there aren’t – how would this work? This isn’t an app – it’s an idea for an app.
Here’s another question – how did this ever make it on to TC?
And what makes you think they don’t have a relationship with the app developers? I don’t see any sign that says “We do not have relationships with developers” like you are trying to state.
“CEO Mark Sendo says that the company is currently in discussions with a number of big games in this space, in the hopes of integrating an API into the games themselves that would negate much of the hassle associated with the transactions, but it sounds like it may be a while before any big deals come to fruition.”
Mike – a good way to promote a company you work for is to *not* go on TC comments and make an ass out of yourself.
I do not work for Bodega, sorry mate.
Grazie per la buona notizia.
We are all pretty proud of Mark and what he has achived so far with Bodega its been a tough road for him personally to turn around his life from his past and with UrTurn as well flaming out.
I agree100% that scammy offers are disgusting and have advised Mark that the offers must be filtered and he and the team agree.
Mark has made huge strides as a person and as a result Bodega is working in an area where there is a real need and even though there are huge challenges its working and he is committed to delivering value.
Thats totally not gonna work. They need game developers to integrate their API to transfer the virtual currency. But by this the Developers would only offer a way for users to easily leave the game. NO Developer would do this. Or in one words:
Fail
The mere fact you think like that proves you need to just GTFO.
So people can complete offers for real cash, sounds like a case of bad idea jeans to me. On the other hand this guy sounds like the perfect guy to setup a virtual currency marketplace…maybe Michael Vick will set up a dog walking service next.
A mi me gusta el nombre. Bodega is an awesome name!!
Great new addition to the facebook applications!, I found it very useful complimenting the other facebook apps. and independently with it’s own features. I used it to buy & sell pictures and exchange virtual currencies like FarmVille.. great new idea..
what the f*ck this must be illegal. bodega + zynga holdem poker = a full casino operating legally
I would like to address the negative comment at the end of this article with regard to Mark. I met Mark a while back, with mutual friends between us. In none of my personal nor professional exchanges with him have I ever felt that he is a dishonest person, nor have I heard of anyone else speak of him as such. He was very honest with me about his youthful indiscretions, of which any interesting person has a few, and he characterized them as such, which only added to my growing trust and appreciation of Mark. In fact, I recently quit the security of my job to go to work for Mark, working on Bodega!
Go Mark, and go Bodega!
Wow, some of you are absolutely hilarious!! For those of you who have “met” Sendo–I feel bad for you. You were conned into thinking he is such an “honest” and “nice” person, just as I was in the past. The application is a incestuous cousin to urturn, and will not work. Because of Mark’s background, ego, and greed–securing funding to enable the need relationships is impossible.
Dearest Private – Being involved in a startup isn’t the most enjoyable thing in the world, nor is the amount of effort required to nurse the company from the ground up, many many times. Eventually, after enough pain, sweat and tears, the company makes it, and those who could not hang on to the boat are left behind. It sounds to me like you couldn’t hang on.
If you want to understand more about Mr. Sendo, talk to the people that he has screwed or the service providers he’s ripped off or never paid. I think he genuinely means well at the beginning of each project, but ends up going back to his old ways. If you look at the list of members in each of his projects, you’ll see that most all are green, inexperienced and lacking the knowledge or ability to do enough due-diligence to see that they will be a puppet in another one of Sendo’s dog and pony shows. For the ones who are not green, it could easily be said that they are complicit in his scams or blinded by his fake “transparency”.
Its highly unfortunate, but I’d say its very safe to assume that many of the positive remarks above have been planted by Mark and his team.
Techcrunch, please do us all a favor and ignore this guy and his flaming POS projects, if for nothing more than to protect the people that he’s bound to screw over next.