IMVU has been flying under the radar for the past few years, while quietly amassing a small fortune with micro transaction and embedded banner ads.
Since April 2004 IMVU has gathered 20 Million accounts with 600,000 of those functioning as active monthly users. To compare this, Second Life managed to acquire 550,000 active monthly users over 5 years.
IMVU generates 90% of it’s revenue via micro transactions that focus on spending in game currency, and 10% from banner ads. CEO Cary Rosenzweig commented that this averages out to around $1.66 a month per active user. VC Jeremy Liew estimates that market hotspots Habbo Hotel and Club Penguin average around $1.33 – $1.66.
What’s for sale in IMVU?
With a demographic of 60% female/60% US based users, most of the top selling micro transaction based articles focus around avatar clothing, accessories and other character objects. Participants make the items themselves with tools like Maya and Blender, and then make them available via the IMVU online shop. . IMVU then takes a small percentage cut of these sales and the rest goes to the seller. IMVU is also a bit more relaxed about users selling items on third party sites, as it ultimately drives traffic and usage back to the MMO itself.
A block of 1000 in game credits cost the end user $1.
With user created items, IMVU is never short on a fresh supply of unique and new content. “It’s my personal belief there’s maybe in the order of dozens who are doing this for a living,” Rosenzweig said. “Perhaps hundreds who are doing it for spending money.”
While IMVU is clocking these impressive numbers, they still remain in ‘beta’ since 2004. Perhaps they’re just taking queues from Gmail?
Tags: banner ads, blender, club penguin, game credits, Gmail, habbo hotel, Jeremy Liew, micro transactions, MMO, Rosenzweig, Second Life, spending money
