PopCap Says 31 Million Social Gamers Are Paying for In-Game Items

Video game developer and publisher PopCap Games has talked about the results of a new study that shows that more than 31 million gamers who are engaged with social games are paying for in-game items and more will do so in the coming years.

The number represents 26 percent of all those who are engaged with titles in the genre, including PopCap Games launches like Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle, Bejeweled and Zuma.

During 2010 just 14% of those who were playing the same games were paying money to get extra content or game helpers.

The increase in the overall number of social players is estimated to be of about 71 percent over 2010, which is an incredible pace and will mean that the genre is even more attractive to developers in 2012 and beyond.

The main public that developers target is the gamers who are described as being “avid”, which means that they play more than six hours during each week.

This category has doubled its numbers, from 7 to 15 percent, in just one year.

PopCap has so far launched a number of Facebook spin-offs linked to its main franchises and is widely thought to be developing new intellectual property that is specifically designed for the social network.

Video game publisher Electronic Arts acquired PopCap earlier during 2011 for an overall price of about 750 million dollars (557.2 million Euro).

EA has been very keen on expanding the revenue it derives from digitally distributed titles, which have accounted for about one third of the overall amount of money the company brought in during the last quarter.

The social gaming space has so far been dominated by Zynga but lately the company seems to have lost a lot of steam, with the dominant position of its games threatened by the likes of The Sims Online.