In a recent survey conduct by the Inside Network, 90 percent of the 1800 social gamers polled indicated that they play their favorite title at least once a day.
28 percent said that they played at least once a day, with the majority, 62 percent, of social gamers coming back several times a day. Not surprisingly, the Facebook king of social gaming of the moment, Zynga’s FarmVille received the most amount of attention, with more than half of respondents saying that they play it everyday. Other strong contenders in the play-now, play-often category are Playdom’s Social City, Playfish’s Pet Society, and Zynga’s Café World.
When it comes to with whom they’re playing, the majority, 55.5 percent, of social gamers play with their friends. 15.4 percent play with classmates, and 9.6 percent play with co-workers. Interestingly, around a quarter, 19.5 percent, of all social gamers play with strangers. Ultimately, this 19.5 percent figure indicates a trust and confidence in the social networking platform.
And while this deep and frequent interaction can be measured as a sign of a hit title, at the end of the day, a hit is only a hit for developers and publishers if there’s some revenue rolling in to foot the bill. Enter stage left – the “Whales”.
The whales are a topic that’s been surfacing a bit as of late, and they serve an interesting purpose and place in today’s social gaming world. A whale is defined as a free-to-play/social gaming player that spends $25 or more per month on a product that is otherwise free to play, should they so choose. It’s these folks that the social gaming industry is building upon. While only 2 percent of the survey respondents admitted to spending upwards of $25/month on social games, the majority of those respondents indicated that their spending was focused on only one game, suggesting that these whales are not so much in love with social gaming in general, but rather, are developing a deep and (financially) meaningful relationship with one game. On the other side of that coin, 0.1 percent said that they spend $25 or more a month on eight separate social games – so there are at least a few players out there that like to spread the money around.
“If 2009 is remembered as the year that casual gaming stormed social platforms, 2010 is quickly becoming the year that the industry started to mature,” comments survey co-author Justin Smith
Tags: PlayFish, social gaming, Zynga
