Just last week I wrote a post mentioning the growth of social gaming, and a new study strengthens the case that the growth will continue. Here are three key stats from that study.
1 out of 5 Americans over the age of six has played an online social game at least once.
Obviously, that number is just based on who was polled. But if you extrapolate that out, nearly 60 million Americans have or are playing social games. That's a huge number of users.
$2.2 billion worth of virtual goods were bought in 2009; expected to increase to $6 billion by 2013.
This is the major reason why social gaming isn't going away in the near future. The amount of money social gaming has already brought in is massive, and experts think that number is going to triple. As long as people are buying virtual goods, companies will continue to provide them.
35% of social gamers have no previous gaming experience whatsoever.
This was the most surprising stat to me, because ever since social games hit the market they've been compared to (and grouped with) traditional games. To me, this says that social gaming is becoming a completely different market, separate from the Nintendo/Playstation/Xbox-dominated industry of traditional gaming.
This is great news for social networks and bad news for the gaming industry. For social networks, social gaming provides monetization options other than just ads and banners. Unfortunately for the gaming industry, their struggles over the past couple of years are most likely to continue, because over a third of that social gaming demographic aren't playing traditional video games.
That being said, the gaming industry isn't beyond hope. However, it will take serious innovation and a continued push towards online gaming. The biggest takeaway is that social games like Farmville won't be put out to pasture anytime soon.
