Green Panda Games is hoping quite a bit. The gaming company, a new venture by Megan Bordi ’09 and business partner Nate Altschul, recently won the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center’s annual A. Lorne Weil Outrageous Business Plan Competition. (check out their winning elevator pitch)
Green Panda is a free-to-play virtual world and educational online game for Chinese kids and tweens. The company’s goal is to create an alternative product to the popular but violent role-playing games and culture that has become prevalent in China.
One of the key elements of the platform — and Green Panda’s primary revenue stream — is the use of microtransactions, a model that has been very profitable in the Chinese gaming market. That format both localizes the platform and provides an educational component with virtual allowances and bank accounts.
“If the kids are buying things, the parents ultimately pay so we recognize that we need to target both groups,” says Bordi, who is a participant in the Entrepreneurial Greenhouse Program Master Class.
However, Green Panda is careful to learn the lessons of other American Internet companies, such as Google, that have gone into the Chinese market.
“We are focused on developing the product from a Chinese perspective and we have a Chinese development team,” Bordi says. “We’re not adapting an American product.”
Altschul adds, “We’ve done a lot of research and work with gaming experts to understand what parents, educators and kids want.”
With the product in private beta testing now, Bordi and Altschul plan to launch the game platform later this year.
Watch video for Green Panda’s winning elevator pitch (opens Flash player).
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