Virtual goods contribute 95% revenue to social game developers

According to foreign media reports, virtual goods sales have become the driving force behind the development of social games, according to industry insiders said the social gaming industry's 95% income currently relies on virtual goods sales. In Asia, virtual goods sales are now more than 5 billion dollars and are growing fast. In the United States, experts expect to reach $5 billion trillion in capacity over the next five years (another site estimates that American virtual goods have reached $1 billion trillion in 2009). Many in the industry believe that virtual goods are bringing about the rapid development of social games, which venture capitalists Jeremy Louis call "The hottest part of the game industry". Louis ' VCs, who have invested 10 million of dollars in virtual goods, said the industry's rapid growth was unprecedented, "and we see companies that have turned from nothing to $ hundreds of millions of trillion in the past 1.5 to two years." "Playfish, a social gaming company founded two years ago, runs 11 online games with more than 61 million global users and sells virtual goods from Pet furniture to restaurant menus." The company's head revealed that there are currently two major revenue models, one is virtual goods, the other is the game built-in advertising, the current proportion of the latter is very small, most of the income from virtual goods. Louis says the Playfish model is common to social gaming companies, and "Virtual goods contribute 90% to 95% of the income of most social game developers." "Aima Cox is a new generation of game users, through the game he and his family and friends to keep in touch." Cox rarely spends 40 of dollars to buy PS video games, "I play online games for a number of reasons, such as quick gratification, playing with friends, displaying virtual objects to others, and even buying them." Cox said he played two to three games in one months and spent 10 dollars a month on virtual goods. His favourite game is the village store, where he had just bought some of the seeds of fertiliser, corn and chili peppers on his last visit.