Some interesting revenue numbers and monetization results have come out Austin GDC. (which I am super sad to not be attending this year…)
Here are some of the more interesting points:
- EA is targeting a 7-8% conversion rate for free to play games, but expects that to lower to 5% with social network traffic
- Top merchant in Second Life is making $1 million/year selling sweaters/skirts
- Top 10 creators on IMVU each made over $100k annual revenue
- Turbine recently transferred from subscription to a hybrid subscription & micro-transactions model. Hybrid model offers greater flexibility and choice. Since announcing their service they’ve actually seen subscriptions go up and concurrency rates rise too.
- Second Life makes close to $100 million and not less than $80 million. They make money in three ways: 1) sale of currency, 2) premium subscription and 3) a hosting model where users pay them to allow their 3D objects to persist
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
