The Free Zone: Virtual Goods Sales 2009 and ChinaJoy 2010
MMORPG.com's Richard Aihoshi has had his ear to the ground in the world of F2P not just here in NA, but around the world. Today, he discusses some of the numbers that have come to light as well as the upcoming ChinaJoy game show.
Column By Richard Aihoshi on February 01, 2010
US lagging behind UK in virtual goods uptake
A few days ago, I saw some rather interesting information on virtual goods sales in the United Kingdom last year. According to a report of apparently unknown origin that was published by Asian News International, the market size in 2009 topped 500 million pounds, which is around $800 million US. What's especially intriguing is that the US, with roughly five times the population, totaled only about $1 billion.
On a per capita basis, this means the average UK resident spent about four times as much on virtual goods as his or her American counterpart. What's missing in terms of a more complete picture is data as to what proportion of the respective populations bought anything at all. I'd also be very curious to know how they stack up beside purchasers in China and Korea. Unfortunately, I've yet to find data that would enable making such comparisons with a decent level of confidence.
I was quite surprised to see that Zynga's social game, FarmVille, apparently led the way by racking up sales of more than $145 million. Naturally, I'm curious to know what the figure was on this side of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, no other game-specific numbers were stated.
In unrelated news, Zynga and some 300,000 members of its game communities managed to raise over $1.5 million for Haiti relief through the creation, sale and purchase of various special limited edition items. And all of this in less than a week. Kudos to one and all.
Over $1.38 billion invested in virtual goods companies
According to the 2009 Virtual Goods Investment Report compiled by VirtualGoodsNews.com, investors put just over $1.38 into virtual goods-related companies, approximately tripling the total in 2008. Although impressive, the figure is still understated, perhaps by quite a bit. This is because 29 of the transactions were private, which meant the dollar amounts involved weren't disclosed.
Of 87 deals, up from 34 the previous year, the largest was EA's purchase of a social game company, Playfish, for $300 million. The aforementioned Zynga wasn't left out in the cold either; it took in a $180 million investment, then another for $15 million. Among the others that received investments last year, some of the more recognizable names include Second Life creator Linden Lab (an undisclosed amount), F2P publisher Outspark ($8.3 million), Turbine (6.6 million), Nival Network ($5 million), leading Russian F2P publisher and developer Astrum Nival (acquired for an undisclosed amount), and GoPets (acquired by Zynga for an undisclosed amount).
Overall, the biggest player in the space wasn't EA, but rather Russian-based Digital Sky Technologies. It was the source of Zynga's $180 million and also invested $200 million in the main platform for many of its games, Facebook. The company was also a seller in 2009; it was the largest shareholder in Astrum Nival, now part of Mail.Ru, which is controlled by a South African media conglomerate, Naspers.
ChinaJoy 2010: a mixed outlook
Due to the economic climate, the past couple of years haven't been particularly good ones for the leading US game industry trade shows. So, it's rather interesting that the organizers of ChinaJoy have announced new initiatives for their upcoming 2010 version, which will take place in Shanghai in July. Encompassing both trade and consumers, the event is already pretty substantial; the announced attendance figure for 2009 was 150,000, with almost 200 exhibitors and thousands of media.
On the trade side, last year's introduction of the China Game Business Conference was apparently successful. Accordingly, there will be five new forum tracks. One of these is a summit that is presumably aimed at high-level executives, while the others will focus on investment and financing, web games, SNS and social games, and mobile.
At the same time, it seems something of a cloud has formed over ChinaJoy. As of last fall, its organizers, Howell International Trade Fair Ltd. and the China Game Publishers Association, are apparently embroiled in a legal dispute with United Business Media LLC, the parent of Think Services, which operates the Game Developers Conferences in San Francisco and Austin, and is also active in other markets, including Europe, Canada and China. What impact this will have on ChinaJoy, CGBC or the Howell-run China Game Developers Conference that takes place concurrently remains to be seen. ChinaJoy has yet to garner much media or gamer attention in the west, and I tend to doubt this will change more than a little in 2010. However, I'll certainly be watching for further news over the coming months to help stay aware of what's happening in the entire global MMOG space.
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He is the former Editor of RPG Vault and his column, focusing on free to play MMOs, appears on MMORPG.com every Monday.
There were a few different discussions in this article but the main one I took away was that the US is far less likely to by virtual goods then Europe or Asia.
I'm not surprised by that and I'm also happy to hear that. It means that my personal preference of paying a flat sub as opposed to ever buying a virtual item will be around for a while longer at least.
And finally I really do not get the love of Farmville, how does that little game excite people and make them spend money? I literally can't grasp the fun in that game (I have no problems with casual games) but yet I see people playing it.
Good to hear, less item shops in the U.S. the better.
for the game just remember the sims, is something useless with no action, its simple and sometime annoying, but is some useless thing get you addicted to it, and half of time you play MMO because of friends you have there so you are bound to drop some cash to have that edge or because you find that cloth or equip "cute".
several people on america side prefer you get to a place with effort not how much you can spend, though a lot of people here play F2P only if they don't pvp or if they don't have much time or even as a 2nd game to play.
though is not new to us some korean or chinese burn money on it just to get uber equips, only diference is on they side it happens more then on our side.
Anyone remembers how much World of Warcraft generates yearly?
you also got to mention this average chinese dont own a computer ,so to get their mmo fix say perfect world they go to
net cafe (mmo arcade basicly)we had that in my city about 3 or 4 years ago but it flopped
where i live poker machine with a net cafe (bar like)would work since poker machine by themselves are enough
to make a living but a net cafe by itself couldnt survive. maybe it was because of where it was dont know
one thing is sure net cafe in asia are way more popular then here
the reason is probably because most mmo gamer cant afford the computer req to play aaa title but can afford to spend
what average f2p cost .
Snarlingwolf and slashbeast cover my sentiments exactly.
Folks on the other side of the pond(NA)have yet to really warm up to buying virtual items and I hope they never do.
There is still a lot of a stygma attached to it there and I hope it endures.
Over 1.2Bill turnover last I read. Sickening. And what did you get for all that cash you've given them over 5+ years? Some patches, a couple extra races/classes/pissy expansions & Blizzard laughing all the way to several banks at their subscriber's expense. Imagine how many mouths around the world that 5 billion could have fed ppl (ok, that's a cheap shot, but nonetheless...:).
I'd love to know what the net profit across the board is. Are they a publicly floated company? If so, should be able to pull their P&L figures from the US stock exchange.
It is publicly floated, I just didn't bookmark the related pages, which also include earnings reports.
P2P works differently though, people pay the even fee to have access to the game, and there's the eventual expansion (imo this content advancing should be done in small patches instead of accumulated developments shipping in a new box, feeling more natural) and RMT.
For folks like Aoshi that are working for the F2P model or wish to see it grow, getting people into buying virtual items instead of purchasing access to content is the main objective you can see here, which is a lot less "solid" if compared to expansions and the fun and advancement you had with your character on a monthly fee, you got basically the whole thing for $15. Heck, you will find individual virtual items that cost more than $15 alone. You see the eventual "it's just fluff", stretched analogies or concepts to make it look more reasonable to those that dislike it and even making it sound appealing for casuals (when instead it's the game design that will determine the casual friendliness, not the revenue model), but it's just an attempt to take it one step further.
Remember, it's just 10~15% of the player base that spends even a single cent, yet it is profitable enough to thrive at a low budget sub-par form while aiming for a higher percentage/average spending. People playing for free are just a base quite vital at this stage (not enough paying people to keep the game populated and balanced alone) and can be "discarded" in the future if this percentage ever reaches high enough.
In my opinion this is the first time I like to be "lagging" behind, the consumer gets so much more.
Hahaha! Globalization at work! A company owned by someone in South Africa investing and making money from a company in Russia that deals with a game often played by Americans and those from England on a site designed at Harvard. Brilliant!
“According to a report of apparently unknown origin”
Wonderful journalisim there. I recently found out myself that according to a report of unknown origin everyone in the UK is a Hobbit; I could find no source for this ground breaking work, but thought it was interesting so decided I would share it with you. :)
Think I am done reading this guys articles. He's gotten to the point that he is grasping at straws to come up with any kind of article. Case in point, this one.
He pushes the F2P thing too much and a majority of US mmo players don't like that business model. *shrug* First and last time I read one of his arties.
"A few days ago, I saw some rather interesting information on virtual goods sales in the United Kingdom last year. According to a report of apparently unknown origin that was published by Asian News International..."
stopped reading right there...
Yes it was a cheap shot... Imagine how many mouths could be fed with the 650 *Billion* the DoD gets every year. Blizzard is at least a private company that is providing a good game for its players(or they wouldn't still have more than 11 million after more than 5 years). Item shops are just one possible business model. DDO is doing rather well with their hybrid system, it will be interesting to see how that shakes out this year.
Why thank you Mr Baggins. That was certainly a fascinating and eye opening report. ^^