Fewer Than 6 Percent of Gamers Buy Virtual Goods...And That's Big Bucks | Tricia Duryee | eMoney | AllThingsD. Fewer than 6 percent of the social game players in the U.S. spend money on virtual goods, but that’s adding up to a whopping $653 million this year alone. When you add other sources of revenues, including lead-generation offers, which are incentives for filling out a survey or signing up for a subscription, and advertising dollars, the social gaming industry is expected to break $1 billion this year for the first time, according to eMarketer. In 2012, revenues will rise to $1.32 billion, with a majority of sales still expected to come from virtual goods.
Still, as the audience for social games is expected to rise, so are advertising revenues. EMarketer forecasts that advertisers will spend $192 million in 2011, a 60 percent rise over last year, and in 2012, advertising revenues are expected to jump another 41 percent. The success of virtual goods and the rise of advertising will lead to more branded virtual goods, said Paul Verna, author of the eMarketer report. Social Gaming Market to Surpass $1 Billion. The rapid rise in popularity of social networking sites as a venue for casual gaming since Zynga released FarmVille in June 2009 will make social gaming a billion-dollar business this year, eMarketer estimates.
Nearly 62 million US internet users, or 27% of the online audience, will play at least one game on a social network monthly this year, up from 53 million in 2010. Their numbers will continue to grow and, along with them, money spent on virtual goods, lead-generation offers and advertising. “Forecasts of audience and revenue growth present an opportunity for marketers to promote their brands through social games,” said Paul Verna, author of the forthcoming eMarketer report “Social Gaming: Marketers Make Their Moves.”
“Implementations include branded virtual goods, custom games, virtual environments within existing games and lead-generation offers. Keep your business ahead of the digital curve. Learn more about becoming an eMarketer Total Access client today. Facebook Platform Payment Providers Report Strong Growth in Q1. While Facebook has focused its Platform efforts over the last 18 months on growth over monetization, several payment providers have moved quickly to fill the gap by providing payment processing services to Facebook Platform application developers. Based on what we’re hearing, those payment companies experienced very strong growth in Q109.
Although most of the companies we spoke with did not want to publicly disclose specific revenue figures, Inside Facebook’s survey of leading payment providers on the Facebook Platform shows that payment providers overall experienced about 35% growth in both overall transaction volume and dollar volume on Facebook for the first quarter. Some reported growth as high as 300% for the quarter, largely due to new distribution partnerships. Challenging Economy Not Slowing Growth of Microtransactions Growing Ecosystem of Players Facebook Staying Mum on Plans Facebook Continues to Develop Gifts, Credits Conclusion. Social Games, une mine d’or pour les plateformes sociales. Cette fois c’est sûr, la crise ne touche pas les jeux en ligne et encore moins les social games. J’avais déjà abordé le sujet l’année dernière (cf. Social Networks + Casual Games = Social Games) mais la donne a semble-t-il changé avec un embrasement du marché. Il faut dire que l’industrie est en pleine mutation ces derniers temps avec une remise à plat du modèle économique (achat > free-to-play) et du modèle de distribution (DVD vendus en magasins > téléchargement ou jeu en ligne).
Casual Games ? Mais commençons par le commencement avec une première définition de ce que sont les casual games (je pars du principe que vous savez ce que sont les réseaux sociaux). La principale caractéristique des casual games est qu’ils peuvent être très rapidement développés et ainsi coller à l’actualité. Je ne rentrerais pas dans une polémique mais il me semble que les casual games tirent leurs origines des premières consoles de jeu portables avec écran à cristaux liquide (Game & Watch) : Social Games ? A Social Game Manifesto. I’m an entrepreneur because I like to break things. Breaking things starts with asking the right questions—questions that expose new areas for innovation and disruption. So, while this is a sort of manifesto—it is really more about asking questions about a market that I’ve come to love… and hate.
That market is social games. If you speak to anyone in the game industry today—as well as many gamers—you’ll quickly perceive that there are two camps. On the one hand are “social game companies.” On the other are the traditional game companies. If this were a medieval battlefield, you could imagine the traditional game companies, the sun flashing on their expensive armor, their shields emblazoned with names like Bioware and Blizzard. Is it really two camps? Being Disruptive All of the businesses I’ve ever started emerged from a simple premise: what if we shook up the status quo by doing something different?
What are social games? Let’s start by looking at what a social game is. What if… Creativity. Inside Virtual Goods: The Future of Social Gaming 2011. Powerful tool for creating web surveys. Online survey software made easy! SurveyMonkey™ Thanks for completing this survey.Now create your own—it's free, quick & easy! Create free surveys in just a few minutes Ask questions in over 15 formats(configured for you and ready to go!) Get answers to any type of question Register with SurveyMonkey today! Sign Up FREE » Facebook Currency Crossroads. There’s been a lot of buzz around the Zynga vs. Facebook “battle” over the Facebook credits system, and the potential for it to become a requirement of doing business on Facebook.
I like to remind myself that I’m building a social games enterprise first–meaning games that people play with their friends . We’re not a “Facebook games company.” To me, Facebook is just a distribution channel. At present, it continues to be the most cost-effective channel. However, it’s the Web that is our principal platform–not “Facebook,” which means we’ll go wherever we can economically address customer demand. I thought it would be helpful to look at Facebook Credits in the context of history and the broader market: Amidst all the bluster between Zynga and Facebook, keep in mind that Zynga’s CEO also has an interest in creating his own payment platform (whether by offers, or the Zynga game cards now being distributed at retail).