Social gaming - The future

2009 brought about a significant change as casual games hit the social platform and changed the way millions interact with their friends online. The sale of virtual goods hit one billion dollars in 2009 in US with more than half of it being spent on social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace and the rest being spent on online gaming sites. It is expected to reach $1.6 billion in 2010 despite the lull in economy over the past year. An astonishing number of people are paying to buy virtual items like gifts, ammunition or increase levels and dress their avatars.

Application developers like Zynga, Playfish and Playdom earned around $300 million in revenue through the sale of goods in 2009 showing a huge growth. Zynga with more than 145 million monthly active users and Playfish with more than 56 million active users show a strong and rapidly growing user base many of whom spend money on virtual goods on various games created by these companies. Zynga’s Cafe World hit a staggering 10 million users in just a week which clearly shows the reach and popularity of these games and the aggressive marketing they get. Companies like Paypal, Offerpal, Zong, Boku, Peanut Labs, Adknowledge and Gambit also stand to gain a share of the pie as they arrange for the users to pay for these goods. A growing industry, social gaming shows great hope even in the future.

 While many believe that the social gaming sphere might get saturated soon it is still expected to show significant growth in 2010. As an increasing number of people get addicted to various games on different social platforms it has given virtual socialising a new dimension. It also shows great promise for individual game developers and application companies. The market is still rapidly evolving and with Facebook’s recent changes in its policy a lot is uncertain but we can be sure that the virtual goods market has great potential and it is set to expand.