Are you sick of reading about FarmVille in your Facebook news feed? You have the option of filtering these updates, but get ready for more invitations to join the party.
“Social gaming” has become a huge industry and a few companies are betting it’s here to stay. Earlier this month, Electronic Arts acquired Playfish, a social gaming company, for approximately $300,000,000. Yes, that’s three hundred million.
While they have 60 million monthly users, Playfish isn’t even the top company in this segment. That title belongs to Zynga, the makers of Mafia Wars, Vampires and the aforementioned farming game of which many of my friends are apparently addicted.
If you have yet to experience these games you may be wondering where the money is coming from. That leads us to the world of virtual goods and micropayments. Many of these games offer players the chance to upgrade their accounts or accomplish various tasks by making small purchases. Do a search for Zynga and you’ll see a sponsored link pushing sales of virtual poker chips.
In the near future you will see even more transactions like this happening through Facebook, but that’s a topic for another post.
What does all of this mean for consumer brands? One thing is for sure, they want to play!
Know of any brand sponsored social games or virtual goods that are gaining traction?
