According to analytics and monetization firm Flurry, virtual goods sales are rapidly overtaking advertising revenues generated on the iOS devices. The firm conducted a study utilizing data from social networking and social gaming applications with a combined reach of 2.2 million daily active users. Noting that the majority of these applications are free, Flurry points out that the vast assumption would be that these free apps would be solely advertising revenue supported. A fair assumption, but according to their findings, Flurry is quick to point out that microtransaction purchases of virtual goods are quickly eclipsing the aforementioned reasoning.
We’re now just one year into Apple’s decision to allow microtransaction purchases to occur in free apps, and the tide is clearly turning. As demonstrated in the graph above, in January of 2010, in-app purchases and advertising revenues were about equal. Moving forward, it’s clear to see that in-app purchases are clearly dominating the revenue streams. Flurry points out that the majority of advertising revenue peaks during the holiday season of 2009, but since then has seen a decline. At it’s peak, September 2010, virtual goods sales dominated revenues, consuming a massive 80 percent of all income.
Citing slow acceptance and adoption of a rapidly changing market, Flurry notes that advertising agencies have been slow to ramp up efforts to put ads onto mobile devices, as the diminished advertising revenues vs. virtual goods drivers indicate that big name brands could be missing out on significant iOS opportunities.
“With these agencies representing and guiding the biggest brands, they appear to be missing a meaningful opportunity to reach a mass market of consumers who have adopted new platforms and forms of content,” says Vice President of Marketing Peter Farago.
Interestingly, Flurry also pointed out that since Android has yet to allow in-app purchases, data could not be collected for this study. Could the Android community be quietly watching and waiting for the optimal time to flip the switch on this model? Given the results of the Flurry study, my guess is that Android might be holding fire to optimize results, aka Q1 2011?
If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll know that Bonfire are the folks formerly of Microsoft’s Ensemble Studios, which brought us Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, and Halo Wars – all titles that could very neatly fold into Zynga’s type of games.
According to the terms of the deal, ngmoco’s shareholders and employees will received $300 million in cash and securities, and have the right to earn additional compensation up to an extra $100 million – all contingent upon performance targets to be reached on or before December 31, 2011. The deal is expected to be finalized by November 9th.
The first round of EA titles headed for Windows Phone 7 are:
If doubled revenues and 1 million+ new players weren’t enough in the good news department, Paiz also outlined f2p LotRO’s 20 percent return of former players since the conversion. The game has also seen a 300 percent increase in peak concurrency, three times the number of players online at the same time, and a 400 percent increase in total active players.
The inaugural event is billed as a “for developers, by developers” awards show, and featured a wide variety of game tracks including social network games, and free-to-play titles, as well as large scale MMOs.
On the other side of the coin, Disney now counts James Pitaro as a staff member. Pitaro recently joined the brain dump at Yahoo! and handed in his resignation late last month. Most recently Pitaro was heading up the development of Yahoo! Sports. He joined the team in 2001 as part of Yahoo!’s acquisition of LAUNCH Media, where he filled the role of Vice President and Head of Business Affairs for Yahoo! Music. Pitaro’s new responsibilities at Disney will include overseeing the brand’s web and social media sites and activities, included the flagship Disney.com.
When questioned, Microsoft admitted that it hasn’t publicaly announced any of it’s 2010 acquisitions, but in fact, has made around 15 this year. While Microsoft is keeping the names of said companies close to it’s chest, Joseph Tartakoff of paidcontent.org confirms that one of these acquisitions was 
