Increasingly, online gaming companies have sought alternatives to credit cards when it comes to collecting online payments. Most recently, Rixty, an alternative online payment platform, partnered with Coinstar in an effort to turn loose change into virtual currency.  The companies will focus on the teen demographic, since many teens don’t own credit cards.

Under the new partnership, users will be able to visit any Coinstar kiosk (say, at a grocery store) and turn their loose change into in-game virtual currency. Here’s how it works: After they put their change into the machine, they may select a Rixty voucher as a way to cash out their change. Each voucher will contain a unique PIN number, which is redeemable through their online accounts. Once redeemed, the virtual currency can be used for anything (virtual goods, subscriptions, etc.) within Rixty’s partner platforms.

“We want to focus on providing a payment mechanism that lets young users meet their own needs without extra fees, that is also convenient and economical,” said Ted Sorom, CEO of Rixty. “We feel everything on the marketplace today fails on one of those counts. Credit cards and mobile phones aren’t youth-controlled, and prepaid credit cards are very expensive and have a lot of fees for reloading. Everything in the marketplace today doesn’t really meet the spending needs of the youth consumer.”

Americans have far more loose change than people might expect. According to Coinstar, there is around $10.5 billion in loose change within American households today, with approximately $90 in each home on average. Rixty is banking on the 32 million users within their target audience of 13-24 to find (and start spending) some of that money.

At the moment, Rixty competes with a number of other platforms, including vSide, GamesCampus, Perfect World, and Ntreev. According to Sorom, the company is looking to support around 50 games and virtual worlds with up to 15 different partners.

[via Virtual Goods News]