TechCrunch article on Spare Change features Mind Games

A recent article about our micropayment partner Spare Change featured our implementation of their latest payment widget. Spare Change CEO Lex Bayer had us working overtime this past weekend to ensure that Mind Games was the first Facebook app to feature their new and improved iTunes-style checkout.

Now, the company is making it easier for consumers to pay through Spare Change with a new payment widget that pops up in each app instead of sending people off to a separate payments page. You can choose between several payment methods including a credit card, Paypal, Spare Change credits, or through your mobile phone bill. Once you buy a minimum of $2 worth of Spare Change credits, you can use them as currency for apps that charge as little as $0.10 at a time. It is also introducing a PIN ID for users who choose to tie their accounts to a credit card so that they can use the same PIN across any app that uses Spare Change. The experience is designed to be familiar to anyone who has ever downloaded an app from the iTunes store. You enter your PIN, and then go back to the app. The company accepts payments from 190 different countries.

Scratch and Win was the first app on Facebook to integrate Spare Change. We launched their payment platform on January 14, 2008. Hard to believe it has been well over a year now.

Backstage games raise over $100,000 for charity

VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA — March 23, 2009 — Backstage Technologies Incorporated (“Backstage”) is pleased to announce they have raised over $100,000 for charity in less than a year through their Facebook games.

In September, 2007 Backstage developed a clever and addictive virtual scratch card application for Facebook called Scratch and Win.  The first fundraising campaign commenced in April of 2008. Each day over 250,000 Facebook users immerse themselves in the Backstage suite of applications, of which to date over 12,300 unique players have supported Backstage fundraising initiatives through the purchase of special charity Scratch and Win tickets.  

The unique power in this fundraising concept is the ability for charities to connect with willing donors at very small donation levels.  As one game player and donor commented, “I’m glad to have been able to contribute to this special charity. It may have only been five dollars, but five dollars is all I could give.”

Totals to date:

• The Land Conservancy of BC: $10,521
• BC SPCA: $11,285
• The BC Lions Society for Children with Disabilities: $9,587
• Doctors Without Borders: $14,032
• Prostate Cancer Research Foundation: $6,444
• Mustard Seed Food Bank (Victoria): $7,800
• The Salvation Army (Victoria): $13,159
• The Heart and Stroke Foundation of BC & Yukon: $11,592
• The Australian Red Cross (Bushfire Relief): $8,460
• The Linus Foundation: $9,684 (ongoing)

Grand Total: $102,564

The success of the Scratch and Win game led Backstage to develop several others, all based on a virtual prize collecting model.  These games are free to play, however to raise money for charity, Backstage sells special game tickets dedicated to a charitable cause at $0.10 a piece.  Tickets are purchased using the Spare Change payment platform, which is designed to facilitate convenient micro transaction purchases on social networks. These tickets are associated with uniquely themed virtual prize sets that can only be won through the purchase of these tickets. A new charity is chosen each month – sometimes based on the preference of the players through elections held within the applications.

About Backstage Technologies
Backstage is a Canadian software company that creates highly engaging casual games for social networks.  Backstage was the VIATEeC 2008 Emerging Technology Company of the Year.  For more information, visit www.bstage.ca.

Contact Information
Backstage Technologies
Marc Dugas (mdugas@bstage.ca)
VP of Business Development
1-250-384-2048

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Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.

Fundraising in February

Thanks to our fabulous and generous Scratch and Win players, we were able to make a donation of over A$13,000 to the Australian Red Cross. The money will be earmarked for disaster relief to help the unfortunate citizens of Victoria.

"After a record breaking appeal and with the bushfires in Victoria now thankfully under control, Red Cross and the Victorian and Australian Governments thank the community for their generosity, recognising a number of events are still to be held." Click Here to read more.

As someone affected by these bushfires, I would like to say thank you so very much for helping out in these awful times. It was like hell on earth, and the aftermath of help from Australians and others around the world amazes me to no end.

Danae Laskowski | Posted on the Scratch and Win Facebook forum at 14:22 on March 21

Meanwhile, thanks to our equally fabulous and generous Pull Tabs players, we were able to make a donation of over $11,000 to the Heart and Stroke Foundation today. 

Russ and Marc present our giant novelty cheque (and a real cheque) to the good folks at the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

A huge thank you to Backstage Technologies for raising funds during Heart Month for the Heart and Stroke Foundation! Thanks to the support of Backstage and to all the players who donated, we are able to move closer to our goal of generations free from heart disease and stroke. We are so impressed with what Backstage have managed to achieve in a little less than a year—providing over $100,000 in support to various excellent causes. Backstage truly is a company with a real and virtual social conscience!

Barbara J. Haley | Area Manager Heart and Stroke Foundation of BC & Yukon

Since April of 2008, Backstage has raised over $100,000 for worthy charities from around the world. We thank our customers for their continued support and generosity: your gaming fun is helping to change the world.

Mind Games is now on MySpace and Bebo

Because grey matters, Backstage proudly announces that our popular Mind Games application is now available on both the MySpace and Bebo social networks.

• Here is the about page for Mind Games on MySpace.
• And here it is for Mind Games on Bebo.

We are very excited to finally be on MySpace and have high hopes for the success of Mind Games on that platform. The app was approved by MySpace on Tuesday and we already have close to 3000 installs without any promotion on our part. Look for other Backstage apps to follow.

Not to be outdone, look for Mind Games on Facebook to introduce an exciting new charity partner in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

Backstage Day: Fun and learnin' help us make better games

On February 16th, 2009 we retreated.  We had waged a successful Facebook platform application campaign for over a year, and it was time to take stock of our triumphs, mistakes, and plot our direction forward in the quest for social networking dominance (SND) in 2009.

To this end we ballyhooed our respective and disrespective views, tossed spread sheeted airplanes at each other, and otherwise engaged in fruitful adult conversations about what was working for our games, and what was not.  But do you know what?  Listening only to your own voices  and creative brain waves can only get a company so far.  One of our key topics of conversation was "How do we get more new players into our games?"  We know our games are addictive and sticky, but we also deftly perceived that there were barriers that first time players were experiencing with our game interface.  After developing our suite of apps for over 1 1/2 years - we had lost the ability to look at our games with fresh eyes.  Even our friends were useless to us - addicted and strung out as they were on Scratch and Win and Pull Tabs for almost the same amount of time we've been playing the games ourselves.

A trumpeting call went out!  With the promise of a small honourarium and unlimited coffee we managed to convince a dozen or so Backstage virgins to come in and give our games a whirl under our watchful scientific eyes.  The results were eye opening!  There were many subtle idiosyncrasies and confusing aspects of our applications that these first time players were able to highlight for us.  We're grateful for their help, and are certain that the insights they provided will help Backstage rise to the top in 2009!

Newbies try out our games as our crack commando squad of programmers look on.  Kind of like deer in the head lights.