Virtual Goods Purchases Rise for Certain Gamers - eMarketer

Virtual Goods Purchases Rise for Certain Gamers - eMarketer

Social games, which initially drove this trend, have stalled in 2011, at least from the standpoint of median spending on virtual goods. PlaySpan and VGMarket estimated that median spending in player-to-player transactions dropped to $20 in July 2011 from $50 a year earlier, and to $20 in third-party transactions from $30 in 2010.

Although these drops are significant, they do not necessarily indicate that overall virtual goods spending is declining. eMarketer estimates that US virtual goods spending in social games will grow to $792 million in 2012, from $653 million in 2011.