Konami Introduce Arcade Game Micro-Transaction Service

Of all the Japanese publishers trying to revitalize the state of arcades in Japan, Konami appear to be taking the most bold and interesting steps.

In September, we reported Konami’s upcoming 3D arcade racer, titled Road Fighters, which allows you to toggle the stereoscopic 3D effect on and off, and is also compatible with Konami’s “Paseli” payment service.

The service allows you to create a Paseli account and buy credits for it, similar to a points card system for arcade services. Paseli enables arcade operators to price their games more flexibly than they could in the past. For instance, they could choose to charge you by the hour, rather than per-game.

Another interesting Konami arcade service is “e-Amusement.” e-Amusement allows you to maintain your own custom ID, associated with a range of arcade games that support the service, and lets gamers transfer arcade game save data to their mobile phones, so they can pick up where they left off.

An extension of this service, recently announced, is “e-Amusement Participation.” This allows Konami to monitor trends and user demands across their arcade game portfolio and provide new content to satisfy their arcade users accordingly, similar to the micro-transactions you see in MMORPGs and mobile phone games.

Like Paseli and e-Amusement, there’s something in e-Amusement Participation for arcade operators, too. Konami believe it will allow operators to increase game usage rates by providing their users with appealing content on a continuous basis.

They’re making it easy for operators to incorporate the service into their machines, too, by making the required equipment available at a low cost. The first game to use e-Amusement Participation is Mah-Jong Fight Club ultimate version.