Lightspeed Research put out new data on social games. Here are some of the findings:

• 58% of the social network users surveyed had played a social game, with 68% starting to play in the last year and 12% in the last month.
• Of social gamers, 17% considered themselves ‘addicted’ to social games
• 59% of social networkers have up to 10 friends playing the same social games as them
• 11% have also invited strangers to play games with them
• 36% of the total respondents cited being invited by a friend as the reason they started playing social games
• 16% started playing social games by reading a friend’s newsfeed
• 18% started playing social games by reading a friend’s recommendation
• 29% play social games daily
• 67% play one to two different social games at least once per week
• 10% play five or more different social games at least once per week
• 24% play several times per day
• 67% play for up to an hour per day
• 24% play up to two hours
• 10% play for two hours or more
• People aged 55-64 play more frequently than 18-34 year olds
• 68% play social games for fun
• 26% play to compete with friends
• 20% play to relieve stress
• Men are more likely to play to compete with friends (28% vs. 23% of women)
• Women are more likely to play for fun (71% vs. 66% of men)
• Men are also more likely to say they play to connect with others (17% vs. 9% of women)
• 17% of social game players have played on their mobile
• 23% for 18-34 year olds have played on their mobile

Monetising social games

• Many social gamers are motivated to interact with brands to get rewards for their games
• 34% have responded to some kind of marketing activity to get game rewards
• 18% have clicked on an advertisement or offer to get rewards
• 14% have signed up to a newsletter or a new game
• 10% have signed up for a free offer
• 3% have signed up for a new credit card for game rewards

VGMarket and PlaySpan, released their 2010 Digital Goods Report on Wednesday. The report reveals consumer behavior patterns among existing customers of third-party and first-party online game marketplaces.

The median spent on digital goods in 2009 was:

• $50 per year for Social Networks
• $40 per year for MMOs
• $40 per year for Casual Games
• $40 per year for Free to Play Games
• $37 per year for PC Games with Online Play
• $20 per year for Console Games with Online Play

Other key points include:

• 32% of respondents made purchases within social networks
• Males are playing significantly more games and are the primary drivers of total digital goods sales
• North American women 25 and older are spending disproportionately large sums of money on digital goods
• The average female spent $55 dollars on Social Network games compared to $30 for males

There’s a new eMarketer  report Social Gaming: Virtual Crops Yield Real Profits that talks about the size of the growing social games market. It’s estimated that in the U.S. that the market will be worth $2.183 Billion in 2012:

• Direct paying users generated $340 Million in 2009, which is estimated to grow to $1.191 Billion in 2012
• Offers generated $324 Million in 2009, which is estimated to grow to $868 Million in 2012
• Advertising to players of social games generated $62 Million in 2009, which is estimated to grow to $124 Million in 2012

Gamesindustry.com says:

• The average age of social network gamers is below 30 years old in the U.S., Germany, France and the U.K.
• 29% of social network gamers are under age 20
• 8% of social network gamers are above age 50 in the U.S.
• Only 4% of social network gamers are above age 50 in Europe
• The average age of the social gamer is 43
• 24% of U.S. gamers consider social networks as their primary gaming method
• 10% of European gamers consider social networks as their primary gaming method
• Almost 60% of social gamers in the U.S. are female

comScore and Offerpal recently released the results of a study on social gamers:

According to the study:

• 53.3% of respondents reported they would be “very likely” to complete a marketing action such as filling out a survey, watching a video, shopping at online retailers or signing up for a subscription in order to get points for the games they play on leading social networks
• 22.8% of respondents reported they would be willing and are able to buy points using cash payment methods such as credit cards, PayPal, bank transfers or mobile billing.
• 29.7% of social gamers do not have the ability or the means to pay for virtual currency with cash options
• Among those who do have the ability and means to pay, 34.9%  are “very unlikely” to part with their money in order to purchase points
• 75% of consumers who viewed a video ad in exchange for virtual currency had never before completed any type of offer nor made a direct payment
• ~10% of those users went on to complete at least one or more transactions-often incremental cash purchases-in just the first week after watching a video
• Of users whose first “payment” of virtual currency was by earning it through Offerpal’s shopping rewards program, 21% went on to make a second transaction through the Offerpal system within one week
• Gamers in the 25-34 age range are most likely (70.9 % “very likely”) to be willing to earn virtual currency through marketing actions
• 54.5% of gamers report playing games online at least once a day
• 26.7% of gamers report playing games online several times a week
• 11.5% play about once a week
• 7.3% play two to three times a month

When asked what kinds of games they play on a regular basis:

• 58.4% of the respondents said they regularly play virtual world/simulation games
• 40.3% arcade games
• 33.5% role-playing games
• 29.7% action games
• 26.9% board games
• 25.6% card games
• 23.4% word games
• Of those who say they are “very likely” to buy points with a cash payment method, a majority of the users are men (53.4%) and a plurality in the 25-34 age range (42.8%)
• 85.4% of the users who say they are “very likely” to buy points with cash are also “very likely” to earn points through marketing actions

The study was conducted between February 12th and February 15th, 2010, and includes detailed responses from 799 comScore panelists. Respondents were filtered to only include users who play games on the leading social network at least once a month.

In an interview with Forbes, Facebook’s Gareth Davis said:

• Facebook just passed 400 million monthly active users
• More than half of Facebook’s users show up every day
• Games are one of the most popular activities on the site
• Facebook has well over 100 million unique game players every month

Women Are Gaming

A study from Q Interactive and Social Media World Forum of more than 2,000 women in November of 2009 found them actively engaging with brands as they partake in social media gaming. The report also states:

50% of U.S. women play online games according to Pew Internet

The online social-gaming market is expected to at least double from $720 million to over $1 billion by 2010 according to Think Equity

The study also establishes a picture of the typical woman engaged in social media games and applications:

• 85% of those surveyed use five or less games and/or apps regularly, indicating an inclination to be loyal to a handful of favorites; approximately 15% regularly invest in six or more games/apps at a time
• 57% are earning/spending virtual currency daily
• 74% got involved in a game or app due to a recommendation by family or friend or because they noticed a friend or family member’s score
• 95% utilize virtual currency primarily to gift and/or advance games
• In interacting with games and apps, 57% feel virtual gifting – for example, giving a bag of virtual makeup from Sephora – is as meaningful as real life gifting
• 97% of women prefer to earn virtual currency through either winning more or accepting a branded offer – versus paying for it with “real” money
• Only one in ten women have actually used “real” money to purchase virtual currency; of that, 85% have spent under $100 in their gaming and aping activities – ever
• Of women who have signed up for branded offers to get more virtual currency, 67% found the offer useful
• 37% of those women chose the branded offers based on “content”; 17% went for offers with free products or services

A follow up study in February, 2010  Q Interactive and Engage! Expo  revealed insight into the psychology of women who play social media games, the largest demographic of social media users. The study of over 700 women, about 54% of which play daily and 30% weekly, investigates a range of viewpoints around salient social media gaming topics. This is the company’s third recent proprietary research study from its “Women’s Channel.”

Of those surveyed, 42% consider themselves gamers and 7% deem themselves obsessed:

• For 67%, one to five hours per week is socially acceptable
• 26% feel six or more hours per week is socially acceptable.
• Nearly 45% of those surveyed have friends they consider obsessed with social media gaming.
• Approximately 16% of those surveyed hide or sometimes hide their gaming habits.

Over two-thirds of those surveyed believe there are stigmas associated with gaming. For those women, the leading stigmas are:

• Games are addictive (24%)
• Play makes you neglectful of other areas of your life (21%)
• Gaming is a waste of time (17%)
• Play at work is basically off limits: 93% of those surveyed share they primarily play at home versus work.

More than half of women surveyed, 54%, fear more games will make gamers pay in the future:

• If forced to pay, 77% would give up the game, while:
• 10% would prefer a monthly subscription or fee
• 10% would prefer a pay-as-I-go system
• 2% would prefer a separate payment scenario for each game played

Chris Sherman Founder of the Engage! Expo said, “…  moms and kids are both wired into social media gaming… however, mom… is actively supervising the time her kids play and what they spend”

• Overall kids (children under 18 years old) are connected: 16% of moms say their children have a smart phone.
• According to mom, 40% of kids are allowed to play daily, 37% weekly, and 10% monthly.
• Generally speaking, kids are banned from the wallet: 80% are not allowed to pay for social media gaming.

The February study is available here, and the November study is here.

Our friends over at VentureBeat have sent over a code that will save you $50 off of registration to the event. We were at last year’s GamesBeat and it was definitely worthwhile. I would recommend it to anyone looking at the business behind virtual worlds, online games, venture capital for game companies, or funding in general. It pulls a good mix of game industry/Silicon Valley.

GamesBeat@GDC 2010 will be held on March 10th in San Francisco and will feature the theme Disruption 2.0.  The one-day executive conference will explore the future of gaming and the effects of the iPhone, iPad, social media, digital distribution, and online gaming on the industry.  Leading speakers will include:

• Steve Perlman, CEO of On-live
• John Schappert, COO of EA
• Bryan Reynolds, Chief Designer of Zynga
• Klass Kersting, CEO of Gameforge
• Neil Young, CEO ngmoco
• Gareth Davis, Platform Manager of  FaceBook
• Bart Decrem, CEO Tapulous

An others. Join 400 other gaming industry leaders for a day of panels, keynote and networking. Register here to receive $50 off your GamesBeat@GDC registration using the following code:  GBEATSP.

Alex St. John, hi5’s President & CTO, will unveil the details of hi5’s new Game Developer Program at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco Wednesday, March 10, 2010 from 4:15 PM – 5:15 PM (PT). hi5 is the largest social media site built specifically for games. The session is targeting social game developers looking for life beyond Facebook as well as online game developers that want to socialize and monetize their games.  hi5 will tell you everything you need to know to get your game distributed to their global audience of over 50 million monthly visitors. hi5 offers game developers:

• Free marketing and promotion across the hi5 network for new games launched exclusively on hi5
• Revenue share on advertising and commerce using hi5 Coins payment platform supporting over 60 payment methods
• A dedicated game portal and game promotional area to facilitate discovery of your game
• One-click automatic game installs, so you don’t lose users at the installation step
• Super-charged social channels which don’t artificially cap or limit the ability for your game to go viral.

hi5’s new Game Developer Program is a different model for social games.  Representatives from engineering, marketing and business development will be on-hand to answer all your questions and anyone with a GDC Expo pass can attend. RSVP here: http://hi5games.eventbrite.com/