Finding information on United Games is like trying to get the dirty details from a secret society without joining.
Their homepage is just a giant sign-up sheet, and you can’t access the rest of their site without entering a code.
I don’t know if that’s supposed to give off an air of exclusivity, but even night clubs in Vegas give you a peek before you pay cover…Have I been involved?
This video explains everything:
Make sense? Either way, here’s the full review on United Games, the company.
Overview
United Games is a fantasy sports affiliate app that charges users to access certain parts of the game and then pays affiliates a percentage of those charges.
It’s basically a “freemium” game – apps that have become notorious for calling themselves free but then charge you dollar after dollar to access any useful portion of the app. In the words of South Park, “freemium isn’t free”.
Only this freemium game comes with an affiliate structure attached, and it’s basically fantasy sports leagues gone totally virtual.
The idea is certainly intriguing. Mobile apps are likely the future for sports fans now that in person attendance is dwindling and fewer people buy cable television. [1]
United Games was founded by CEO Jeff Henderson, who spent over two decades with Nu Skin Enterprises in executive positions. Natalyn Lewis, second in command, also comes from Nu Skin and has also founded her own companies.
The guy they’ve got building the app, Ben Eggett, Chief Technical Officer, is pretty epic. Dude has worked on over 175 projects, many of which were in Fortune 500 web and mobile app companies, and he’s a big name in the Ruby community.
Their mission is to “democratize the way mobile games are marketed and shared” by paying affiliates rather than advertisers to spread the word. Sounds cool, in theory, but really it’s just typical MLM structure dressed up in self-aggrandizing language.
How much does United Games cost?
It only costs $39.99 to become a United Games Affiliate, which is pretty on par with other MLMs. However, since it’s a virtual product, you don’t get much of anything out of your sign-on fee, whereas other MLMs charge the fee to cover product samples.
Additionally, you’ve got to pay a $9.99 monthly membership fee to stay on as an affiliate. Paying $9.99 for an app is expensive, but it’s not outrageous if it offers something you really enjoy regularly. It’s about what people pay for Spotify or Netflix. It also gives you the right to make money off people you recruit.
Products
United Games sells a mobile app, plain and simple. Right?
Not so much.
As with many MLMs, there is a shady side. Many users have reported joining the app because it was advertised as an opportunity to make money for tokens in the app by referring other people to the FREE app.
However, in order to do anything useful, you have to pay $39 to join, and to make money, you have to pay the $10 per month membership fee.
The product is intriguing, though.
Essentially, they’ve developed a proprietary live event predictive analysis engine for sporting events, and they’ve joined that with real-time sports technologies. The app promotes the social aspect of fandom through a fantasy sports type set-up that allows users to interact with each other and make predictions. While they’ve got predictive analysis down, they want users to feel the “game” experience rather than the pure “stats” experience. [2]
The app generally has fantastic reviews from hundreds of people in the iTunes store.
However, it’s got some bad ones as well, including people accusing the app creators of purchasing fake reviews considering the fact that it had hundreds of 5-star reviews the day that it launched, even though it wasn’t working properly. [3]
It’s also yet another “free” app that then charges you all kinds of money to access parts of the game that are actually necessary to play. Basically, your iTunes bill can add up fast playing games like this. The app requires you to by “Tokens” to play, and money from player Token purchases is part of how Affiliates get paid.
Opportunity
Despite the complete lack of information on their website, the compensation plan PDF (once you’re able to find it) is actually pretty detailed.
United Games calls themselves an affiliate program rather than a multi-level marketing company. However, their compensation plan is clearly structured in “pyramid form”, with tiers for affiliate referrals. Your personal referrals are your tier 1, the people they refer are your tier 2, etc.
They also have “zones”, which is your typical ranking system for MLM reps.
Zone 1: You just have to be an active Affiliate (pay the $39.99 start-up fee and the $9.99/month membership fee).
Zone 2: Be an active Affiliate AND have:
- 5 Tier 1 active Affiliates
- 25,000 in total team token volume
- No more than 50% of that total team token volume from 1 Affiliate line
Zone 3: TBA
Zone 4: TBA
Granted, this is a pretty new MLM, but the fact that they’ve released the app and recruited affiliates and still haven’t decided on what Zones 3 and 4 entail is pretty questionable.
There are 3 ways to get paid as a United Games Affiliate:
- Commission from Tokens purchased
Affiliates convince their friends and family to download the game using their referral code, and from that point on, any time those people acquire tokens (make in-app purchases), that Affiliate gets paid a commission of 10% on Tier 1 and .5%-5% on Tiers 2-9 (the higher your Zone, the more Tiers you unlock).
- Commission from Tokens played
Affiliates can organize games and invite people to play, and those people who choose to play must pay Tokens. The Affiliate who organized the game then makes a commission on those players’ Tokens ranging from 1-5% on Tiers 1-4.
- Check Matching Commission
If you encourage the Affiliates in your downline to make commissions in the above 2 ways, you also get a bonus that equals a percentage of their total earned commissions. That bonus starts at 20% on your Tier 1. Zone 2-4 Affiliates can also earn 10% on Tier 2 recruits. Zone 3-4 Affiliates add 5% on Tier 3 recruits, and Zone 4 affiliates earn another 5% on Tier 4 recruits.
Recap
The concept of a fantasy sports app is new and fresh, especially for MLM. It’s also a product that could become wildly popular if done right.
However, the buzz around this particular app has been less than overwhelming, probably because it ends up costing users way too much money. Are you going to start throwing your paychecks away on a mobile app just because your cousin told you it was a fun game? Probably not.
Like so many MLMs, this one clearly places more focus on the recruitment structure and making money off Affiliate fees than they do on actually creating a successful app.
In other words, if you like automated ways to build passive income, there are better ways.
(and you can trash those old MLM habits, too)
via http://mlmcompanies.org/united-games/
No comments:
Post a Comment