Offerpal: Game sites will make more money with its survey engine

Offerpal Media announced a new way to monetize video games by allowing users to earn virtual currency in games in exchange for filling out online surveys.

The Offerpal SURVEYS platform is available for game developers and social media publishers to implement in their games. In these games, users can earn virtual currency by filling out surveys. Those surveys are sponsored by advertisers or market researchers who want to reach certain kinds of users.

Normally, users have to pay for virtual goods, such as more powerful weapons, with real money in games. The SURVEYS platform represents an alternative payment system. It means that gamers who don’t have the money to pay for virtual goods can still do something valuable — filling out surveys — that allows them to earn goods.

Offerpal is making the announcement at the New York Games Conference today. At its launch, developers will be able to monetize using more than 1,000 different surveys available in over 50 countries from top market researchers such as Nielsen NetRatings, comScore, OTX Research, Synovate and others.

Offerpal has done surveys before and they are among the most popular offers, said Anu Shukla, chief executive of Offerpal. The new platform is a stand-alone product that developers can use if they want to focus exclusively on surveys and start making money through them in a matter of minutes. Offerpal’s direct sales staff is constantly adding new survey offers. To date, more than 5 million surveys have been completed through Offerpal and about $12 million has been paid out to publishers as a result of revenue from the offers, Shukla said.

Offerpal was founded in 2007 and has 65 employees. To date, it has issue more than 30 billion virtual points to more than 115 million consumers, who have used the apps or games of 1,200 publishers. Offerpal has raised more than $20 million to date.

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