MarketingVOX: The Virtual Goods Summit was held at Stanford last week. The summit showed how flexible a virtual good can be; it’s hardly all about buying a new staff in World of Warcraft, reports GigaOM.
Among the highlights of the summit was news that virtual goods is “easily a billion dollar market,” according to virtual currency exchange site Sparter. Virtual world Gaia online has 50,000 completed auctions daily, while casual MMO Puzzle Pirates earns the majority of its $350,000 revenue per month on virtual sales.
And its not just virtual worlds. Sites like Facebook and Hot or Not allow users to buy items like virtual flowers for a crush. The flowers take the shape of an icon that is then posted to the recipient’s profile.
In China, firm QQ, the mainland’s largest IM/games/social network, sells virtual penguins as pets – and 54 million have been sold so far.
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- Beverage Maker Diageo Goes Virtual in Second Life
- Childhood Games of Pretend Get Even More Virtual
- Second Life Walk-a-Thon Raises Real-Life $75K
- Study: Digital Distribution, Virtual Items to Make Up 40% of Gaming Market by 2012
- Australian Broadcasting Co.’s Second Life Island Gets Nuked
- Microsoft Ups Fees for Virtual Add-Ons to Xbox 360
