来自虚拟交易研究网站的一份调研数据称社交游戏发烧友每月游戏虚拟花费在25美元左右。

社交游戏

尽管只有约计10%的社交游戏玩家会为某些游戏进行虚拟付费，但是这些虚拟付费用户中有相当的比例是社交游戏的狂热爱好者，被称为游戏鲸吞者，这部分人每月的游戏虚拟交易的25美元甚至更多。

Inside Network的创建者贾斯汀-斯密斯（Justin Smith）表示对于社交游戏玩家来讲，那些付费用户和那些非付费用户可谓泾渭分明，要么根本不会花钱，要么会相对大方些。其实这样的消息对于游戏开发者来讲应该具有极强的开发指导意义。

游戏发烧友

Though only 10 percent of social game players actually spend money on Facebook titles, some of those users are social gaming “whales” who spend $25 or more per month to buy virtual goods, according to a new study.

An independent report from Inside Virtual Goods, “Spending and Usage Patterns of the Social Gaming Audience”, surveyed more than 20,000 social gamers on Facebook “from around the world and across the demographic spectrum”.

Despite the negative connotations of the “whale” nickname, it’s a category of users that most publishers and developers likely appreciate, as the report points out that players spending $25 or more are generating the most revenue for those companies.

“It’s clear that people either spend a lot of money or spend nothing,” said Justin Smith, founder of Inside Network and co-author of the report, in an interview with VentureBeat.

Notably, the study showed that of the nearly 2,000 surveyed, 84 unique respondents said they spent more than $25 on only one game. 15 unique respondents said they spent more than $25 on two Facebook titles, and six said they spent over that amount on three social games.

Some of Facebook’s whales are spending a lot more than $25 — virtual payments firm Social Gold recently revealed that some of the top spenders it’s tracking have purchased well over $10,000 worth virtual currency and goods, with one user in Saudi Arabia parting with as much as $25,540.

Inside Virtual Goods’ study also provided insight on who social gamers are playing with and how often they play different titles on Facebook. The survey found that 55.5 percent of respondents play with friends, 9.6 percent with co-workers, 15.4 percent with classmates, and 19.5 percent with strangers.

As for frequency of play, 61.8 percent of social gamers said they play several times a day, 28.4 percent said at least once per day, and 6.6 percent said several times a week. The following chart from the study show how often respondents who played a particular popular Facebook game spent time on that title:

“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,” added Smith.