Game on for Brands. Visitors to the sprawling Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week encountered innumerable come-ons from electronics and tech companies. One of the more unusual came from Intel, which at 15 locations throughout the show invited attendees to "check in" using mobile social network Foursquare and earn one of four virtual Intel CES badges, which would enter them into a contest for an Intel-powered netbook. The program is a foray into the growing world of social gaming, where users go to great lengths to earn make-believe badges, carry out faux assassinations and tend to digital crops. Brands hope they can curry favor with users by bringing something of value to the games, whether that's creating their own virtual goods or underwriting an added game level in exchange for video views. "I like the idea of a mission," said Bryan Rhoads, senior digital strategist at Intel's social media center of excellence.
"[It's almost] a scavenger hunt for techie and geeky things. Investing in the Internet… literally. | Analysis & Opinion | Reu. The headlines were salacious, the scandal was set. This was going to be the water-cooler story of the week. 27 year-old Erik Novak from British Columbia paid out a record-breaking $330,000 (USD) for a digital space station. Let that sink in for a moment. A digital space station. In a video game. Perhaps even better than all the jokes you and I could write all day was the argument from the company that this was a sound investment. First Planet Company created “Entropia Universe” and then the “Planet Calypso” massively-multiplayer online videogame to act and feel like a real economy.
Blah blah blah, where’s the investment angle? Apparently, the company says that this virtual space station will return investment within two years. “He’s bought a city, basically,” the video game company’s spokesman, David Tractenberg, tried to explain to me, adding that the whole world for the video game has become its own civilization, not unlike World of Warcraft. Money for nothing? Virtual goods market takes off ( - Internet - Social networking and multiplayer online games are fueling dramatic growth in hard cash earned from goods that exist only in the world of online make-believe, according to companies in that market gathered at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. For mainstream consumer electronics vendors, last year may have been "a year none of us would wish to repeat," as Consumer Electronics Association President and CEO Gary Shapiro put it in a speech opening CES Thursday. Industry revenue dropped 7 percent in 2009, he said.
But for the group assembled Wednesday at a CES panel discussion on the business of virtual goods and online gaming, 2009 was a very good year indeed. Some vendors estimate that U.S. revenue grew from a negligible base in 2008 to US$1.2 billion in 2009, with projections to at least double in 2010. "The concept of virtual goods is exploding beyond virtual worlds," said Cary Rosenzweig, president and CEO of IMVU, a social network and 3D virtual world. Virtual Worlds News: Data Provides Insight into Virtual Worlds, Three data points released this week — which on their face didn't appear to offer a boatload of value for individuals or companies with a stake in the virtual worlds and virtual goods industries — can be parsed for insight into how the markets are responding to some existing virtual world/virtual goods products, as well as how markets might be anticipated to respond to future business initiatives.
The data points and their impact on our industries: The NPD Group released year-to-date data on US toy sales, which appears to be holding up in a very weak general economy (and this is before holiday figures are added). According to NPD, overall toy sales through November were down just 2 percent from $16.38 billion year-to-date a year ago; this year's YTD figure, $16.03 billion.
Impact on segments that matter: sales of connected web play toys such as Webkinz, where sales revenues were off 41 percent for YTD November 2008 figures. The Next Big Tech Money Maker: Virtual Goods - Broward Palm Beac. A couple of years ago, if you'd have said "virtual goods" to someone, they would have assumed you meant digital consumer items like electronic books or music.
Not anymore. Now, Virtual Goods are the hottest new market on the Web and it's expected to hit $1 billion or more next year in the U.S. alone and several times that world-wide. Virtual goods are those things you see advertised and have probably purchased to enhance your Facebook game, beef up you character in an MMO, or sent to a friend as an online gift. They're the "power ups," the virtual flowers," and the Second Life bonuses that were purchased by 12 percent of American Internet users in 2009.
Most of those who purchase these are women aged 12 to 44 and young men between 15 and 25. The world wide market could top $5 billion before 2015, most experts seem to agree. An FSU doctoral student, who remains unnamed, took the job of analyzing virtual goods buying habits in November in cooperation with First Planet Company. Virtual goods market heating up | Press Release. 2010-01-11 22:19:28 (GMT) (WiredPRNews.com - News, Social Media News) The market for virtual goods is seeing significant growth. U.S. (WiredPRNews.com) – The market for virtual goods is seeing significant growth. As reported by PCWorld, social networking and other online activities have sparked growth in goods and services usable only in the online world with gaming, gambling, and other web based activities.
The increase in popularity of applications such as Farmville and Yoville on Facebook has helped widen the demographic of users of virtual networks. WiredPRNews.com – The latest in Social Media News Photo Found: Wikipedia public domain. Virtual Worlds News: Virtual Goods Forecast Taps Opinions of Ind. Today Engage Digital Media, owner of this blog and of the upcoming Engage Expo, released its Virtual Goods Industry Forecast 2010 . The forecast, a study which includes data as well as opinion and predictions from over 30 leaders in the virtual goods and virtual goods-related space, contains information solicited in the past 30 days, something which emphasizes the report's timeliness as well as usefulness.
The forecast, well over 11,000 words in length, asked business leaders a set of five questions, including what their trend predictions are for 2010, what they see as the most significant challenges ahead for the virtual goods industry, and who they think will have the greatest impact on the virtual goods sector in the coming year. Respondents are an eclectic group, ranging from venture capitalists to entrepreneurs to CEOs. Their undiluted and often frank observations — and not all were boosters of the sector nor advocates of unbridled growth, yet each in their own way offer founder Charles Ju. Virtual Economy in U.S. is Booming. Gamers are spending billions on virtual goods in the U.S. When a lot of people think of gamers, they automatically think of mostly male teens who sit around a game console or computer screen all day playing alone.
The reality is that the average gamers today are in their 30's and have a significant disposable income to support the expensive hobby. More and more women are also becoming gamers. A new study recently found that women tend to be more hardcore gamers than men are, but they also tend to lie about how much time they spend playing games. More and more people are also playing games that are closely tied to social networks like MySpace and Facebook. These gamers often report that they play the games not so much for the game itself, but to interact with friends and family.
Venture Capitalist Jeremy Liew said, "This [virtual goods] is just an exploding part of the gaming business right now. Social gamer Emma Cox told BBC News she only plays to keep in contact with friends and family.