Update: We've been informed that the 12 million number is actually older data from a separate source - it comes from research by Inside Network, and dates to mid-2010. It applies to the entire online audience in the U.S., not just Facebook.
Original story:
According to PayPal, over 12 million users pay out some increment each month for games on Facebook. This is equivalent to 1.6 percent of the 750 million users on Facebook, though it still represents hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
PayPal also said that over 40 percent of adults play online games, with most gamers saying they would purchase more virtual goods if there were more loyalty credits. The online payment system claims that over 70 percent of all gamers are PayPal customers and 62 percent of North American virtual goods sales are facilitated by PayPal or credit cards.
“The growth of PayPal in games was organic, and now there are more and more ways to pay for goods online,” said Carey Kolaja, senior director of emerging opportunities at PayPal to VentureBeat.
Xbox Live recently became open to PayPal and the company immediately saw a jump in transactions. “In massively multiplayer online games, the number of paying gamers keeps going up,” Kolaja said. “The perception about digital goods is that they lead to micro transactions, which are small. But the average purchase for a paying user is in the mid-20s (in dollars). It is on a positive trajectory.”
Kolaja noted that alternative payments that let users pay for something without a bank account or credit card are a big growth industry. “We recognize the need to go into that space,” Kolaja said.
As popular as social gaming is, online gamers spend more money on MMOs overall, and World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy remain among the top games played by PayPal users. Check out the full infographic obtained by IndustryGamers below, which has even more interesting data points.
