David Perry recently laid out an impressive slideshow over at Business Week with 33 examples of how to monetize games.  Perry a 27 year industry veteran has over $1 Bn of retail game sales receipts to his credit, and co-founder and chief creative officer of Acclaim games.

Perry fully admits in the article that the rapid and expansive growth of the gaming industry will and should probably make his 33 ways list obsolete rather quickly.  Perry sees games that fall into the ‘social’ catagory as those with the most explosive growth and potential.  Siting an NPD Group study, Perry notes that 15% of retail game sales go to the adult ‘mature’ audience, and 85% to everyone else.  Social games are asynchonus (meaning, busy players take turns going back and forth at each other, and do not necessarily need to be ‘playing’ at the same time) and fall nicely into the mid-zone between these adult ‘mature’ gamers and all others.  In other words, covering the most amount of the market with the widest net.

Distribution methods are also covered by Perry.  Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony, former kings of brick and mortar distribution methods, have changed their tune and opened online distribution channels.  As soon as ISP penetration reaches the tipping point, Perry sees physical media such as cartridges and DVD’s going the way of the dodo bird.  The players to watch in the digital distribution battleground?  Facebook, MySpace, Google, and Apple.

While Perry’s list covers a wide range of money making gaming ideas, his microtransaction side is of particualr significance, pointing out even staunch anti microtransaction publisher Blizzard’s recent dipping of toes into the ‘let’s measure their reaction’ pool:

Micro-Transactions

These are small, impulse-driven purchases bought for reasons of vanity, saving time, better communications, or even moving up a level more quickly. (Levels are a player’s ranking within a virtual society.) They’re generally paid for using virtual points, either earned in the game (by playing), or bought for real money (which is a massive time-saver). A new trend is offering virtual items in exchange for access to a player’s real-world friends. So for example: “You can have this magic sword, if you invite a friend to play.” Getting that balance right can mean stunning revenue growth, which makes it even more important for you come up with offers the gamers really want. This technique works well on social networks like Facebook as friends are just a click away. If you can get more than a 1 to 1 ratio, the game goes viral, which results in exponential growth. That’s the goal here.

The image that Perry chose?

Pointing out Blizzard’s new ‘recruit a friend’ campaign whereby new comers and those that recruited them can now gain ‘triple xp’ and summon each other to each other, thereby saving a great deal of time.  The recruiter also has the opportunity to receive an exclusive in game mount if the recruitee follows through on certain terms and conditions.  See it any way you want…but it looks like a crack in Blizzard’s armor.

View Perry’s article at Business Week.

View Perry’s slideshow at Business Week.