Abogados de Inmigracion

But here’s an entirely new payment option: A user can print out a barcode and head to a 7-Eleven store, which will accept cash, scan the code and notify Kwedit that payment has been made. In the next three months, a Kwedit logo will join those for credit cards and other payment methods on the doors of all 7-Elevens, a company spokesman says.

As game purveyors, Kwedit’s current partners sell virtual goods whose marginal cost is virtually zero, so there’s no risk of real financial loss if the promise is not repaid. But by offering Kwedit’s service, the game publishers capitalize on the most frictionless form of sales: buy now, pay later.

At FooPets, users “adopt” lifelike digitally animated pets and then buy virtual goods for them, including food, beds and chew toys. The site’s core demographic is 12- to 14-year-old girls, said Scott Sorochak, a co-founder of FooMojo, which operates the site. The company says that FooPets has one million active members and that it is signing up 20,000 to 25,000 new members daily.

“Kwedit is the first payment system we’ve used that doesn’t require getting a parent involved,” Mr. Sorochak said.

Now an eighth grader, on her own, can use a Kwedit Promise to buy a virtual 40-pound bag of Purina Puppy Chow. The chow exists only as a photograph of a Purina package, but FooPets instructs its users that the care and feeding of the digital pets they’ve adopted should be regarded as a serious matter. “Your FooPet is a real creature that lives online,” the company’s Web site says.

It’s ontological nonsense, but the money that is paid for the pixels is certainly real. (The big bag of virtual puppy chow costs $3. For parents with deep pockets, a “rustic bungalow” is $333.)

Systems like these — known in the industry as nurturing games — are built to require regular investments of time and, for fullest enjoyment, money. The games are usually hosted by social networks like Facebook, or can connect to such networks so friends can follow one another’s progress. They feature living digital property — the crops in FarmVille or the fish in Happy Aquarium — that can die without care and feeding. At FooPets, death is averted because, after a short period of neglect, the pet goes to a FooShelter. (And reclaiming it becomes an expensive proposition.)

In 2008, about $510 million was spent on virtual goods in the United States, and last year the amount almost doubled, to $1.03 billion, according to a report prepared last month by Inside Network, a research firm based in San Francisco. Justin Smith, the company founder, estimates that the market will grow to $1.6 billion this year.

Kwedit’s system rewards users for repayment. Initially, the credit extended is modest, only $2 to $5. And a Kwedit score, modeled on a credit score for use by game publishers as a guide to how much credit should be extended, is set low.