Typical credit or debit cards offer incremental rewards for purchases — frequent flier miles, cash back, etc. American Express and Riot Games will offer a debit card that returns points for in-game purchases in League of Legends, the New York Times reports.
The arrangement will be announced Wednesday, says the Times, and the incentive currency it returns are Riot Points, which unlock characters and extras in League of Legends. It’s a debit card only — not a credit card — and someone who signs up for it and puts $US20 into the account will get 2000 Riot Points, with bigger incentives for linking it to a direct deposit account.
The arrangement is meant to “expand our traditional reach beyond the mass affluent,” an AmEx executive told the Times. The exec said it’s become harder to reach 18- to 24-year-olds who don’t spend as much time as older generations consuming traditional media like television.
The Times spoke to a Consumers Union rep — they’re the people who publish Consumer Reports — who warned that linking games incentives to spending behaviour could increase the “addictive quality of games.”
Prepaid debit cards also carry fees for withdrawals and balance inquiries. Unless you buy something that completely expends your balance, there’s always some portion of your money sitting there on it, unused.
AmEx Links a Debit Card to an Online Video Game [New York Times]
Comments
6 responses to “Get A League Of Legends AmEx (It’s A Debit Card Though)”
Zynga has had this for a little while now too… I think it’s quite irresponsible to merge these products in this way. If they want to reward people, they should do it via Riot Point cards that are purchased with a c/card.. keep the separation so it doesn’t become so linked..
well, it’s a debit card and I don’t see it as being much different from a creditcard reward scheme (if anything the rewards are at least easier to reach). On the other hand, getting an American Express card, that’s just downright irresponsible.
But on a less smug note, care to explain what you mean by the scheme being irresponsible? As I understand from the article, RP is obtained by loading money onto the card and not by buying things on the card.
That is awesome. I will get one. nuff said
Let’s not and say we didn’t. More ways to get younger people into debt they don’t need.
This wont kids into debt, for one Video games are for all ages…
Secondly it’s a debit card, you can’t spend anymore money than you have on it.
The kids max the credit out due to all the new toys they can have and then put more money (pocket money, money from gran etc) on the card and then get into that cycle of not using money responsibly.
…Except that you can only use it to make purchases with the cash you already have. How will that get more people into debt?
I have a debt card, I use it daily at least for parking. I play LoL now and again, and I never buy RP, ever. If I can get some skins for kicks, without spending more than I usually do. I will get one. If it has hidden charger then count me out. But will we be able to get it in Australia?