Free games boost Gaming industry virtual goods revenue

Introduction: Foreign media today published analysis that, although more and more players choose free games, but this does not affect the game industry revenue, but through the sale of virtual goods for the game industry to create revenue.　　The following is a summary of the article: free games used to be the "cancer" of the gaming industry, but now they are the source of revenue for game developers because they can attract players to buy virtual goods or props in games through free games. A survey released earlier this month by Germany's it, telecoms and new Media Association (BITKOM) showed that 45% of German gamers only chose free games.　　Matias Helmond Matthias Hellmund, director of mobile games development Exozet, a German game developer, says fewer players are buying 70 of dollars of video games because they are turning to ipad games, which are usually free or 99 cents. But Helmond said: "This change does not mean that the cost of the game will be reduced because they may be willing to spend hundreds of of pounds to buy virtual props to improve the gaming experience, and therefore spend more." "The results of the BITKOM survey showed that 43% of the players in paid games spent an average of 15 euros (about 21.58 dollars) a month.　　But Christian Funk, a Christian Fink analyst at the Russian Internet security company, said a deal could cost as much as € 1500 (2113 dollars) for a sword or special weapon in a free game. On ebay, a virtual goods sales channel, Fink found that 3,641 virtual goods for World of Warcraft had an average price of € 132.33 (about $186.4) in 14 days.　　Mr Fink predicts that gamers spend as much as 11.5 million euros (about 16.5497 million dollars) a year on virtual goods purchased from the World of Warcraft. The number of free players is climbing and the number of free gamers is increasing.　　In June this year, Wooga, the biggest social game developer in Europe, increased the number of players free to play on the Facebook platform from 3.15 million in January 2010 to 32.83 million, according to research company Screen Diges. Of these, 3% of the players paid for virtual goods. Wooga spokesman Sina Kaufman Sina Kaufmann said: "If I like this game, want to speed up the game, I would like to buy props." "(Li Ming)