DFC Intelligence today released a report that forecasts the market for English language client-based free-to-play (F2P) games on the PC  as:

• $250 million in 2009
• $2 billion by 2015

Other interesting data points includes:

• By the end of 2010, it is expected that English language client based F2P games will have a combined total of 128 million registered users
• 8 of the top 12 cities in terms of internet connection speed, are in Korea

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

Dean Takahashi at GamesBeat has some data on virtual goods from a research study commissioned by PlaySpan today:

• 31% of the people who have bought virtual goods have also sold them.
• In-game virtual currency is the most frequently traded virtual good between players
• Sellers of virtual currency have earned a median of $22 in the past year
• 49% of social network gamers who have bought virtual goods also made a sale (median earning $50)
• 25% of virtual goods buyers also made a sale (median earning $98)
• 69% of buyers of virtual goods have not sold virtual goods, however 30% were interested in doing so
• Sellers had a median age of 21, an annual household income of $30K and 89% were male

With the announcement of its new CEO, Owen Mahoney, free-to-play MMO publisher Outspark released some data on their user base:

• Outspark has a registered user base of more than 4.7 million globally
  
• Since the company launched in 2007, traffic to Outspark has grown to 5.4 million unique visitors a month

comScore released an analysis of Americans’ usage of online gaming sites as the economy sours which showed that the category has grown:

• 27 percent during the past year
  
• American online gaming sites had 86 million visitors in December 2008
  
• Total time spent playing online games jumped 42 percent
  
• Americans’ total share of Internet time spent playing online games grew from 3.7 percent in December 2007 to 4.9 percent in December 2008
  
• Yahoo! Games ranked as the most visited site in the category with 19.5 million visitors (up 20 percent) 
  
• EA Online haad 15.4 million visitors (up 21 percent)
  
• Disney Games had 13.4 million visitors (up 13 percent)