Katy Perry joins forces with The Sims

Washington Post: "themed in-game content and virtual goods"

Zynga Chief Talks IPO

The Wall Street Journal: "was on track for one of the hottest initial public offerings of 2011 ...Now he wants to show the hype was justified"

Zynga IPO opens at top of price range

Financial Times: "Stephanie Chang, analyst at Renaissance Capital: Zynga has a tangible revenue stream in place"

What To Expect From The Zynga IPO

San Francisco Chronicle: "earns 95% of its income from its $969 million in sales of virtual goods"

Paying for pixels

The Economist: "Turbine: LOTRO .. moved to [free2play] .. revenue .. tripled"

Real Money for Virtual Coin

technologyreview: "The research firm In-Stat projects that the global market for such goods will be over $14.6 billion by 2014, more than double its 2010 value"

Nexon will hold $1.3B IPO

Venturebeat: "Nexon in particular has pioneered the top business model of the day: free-to-play games where people play games for free and pay real money for virtual goods. It’s a growing business: Market researcher Strategy Analytics expects the virtual goods market to grow from $6.8 billion in 2011 to $12.7 billion in 2016."

Southeast Asian online game market expected to be worth $1 billion by 2015

Gamesbeat: "by 2015 .. effectively double the .. revenues [of] 2011"

Free-to-play transition brings seven-fold revenue increase for DC Universe Online

Gamesbeat: "53 percent of this revenue .. by ..console version"

Farmville' Makers Putting Stock In Virtual Goods

NPR: "Sam Hamadeh, CEO of PrivCo .. estimates Zynga is worth $5 billion, others say 20"

American Express Buys Virtual Currency Company for $30 Million

GamePro: "Virtual transactions in games rake in a staggering total of $7.3 billion globally. It's growing fast. It's only picked up steam as more and more companies are getting into the virtual currency market"

Social Virtual Goods Revenues Generated via Mobile Devices to Reach $3bn in 2011 Rising to $4.6bn in 2016

MarketWatch: "A new report from Juniper Research finds that soaring usage of social gaming -- driven largely by the sharp rise in smartphone adoption -- will push the global market for virtual goods bought from mobile social media services from $3 billion this year to $4.6 billion by 2016."

Four Reasons Why Virtual Goods Make Us Happy

Forbes: "eMarketer estimates that virtual goods revenues will reach $653 million in the U.S. this year, up 28% from 2010. Clearly, Americans are hungry for virtual goods."

Why World of Warcraft added Pokemon-like battling to Mists of Pandaria

Gamesbeat: "a one-day sale of a unique Celestial Steed mount netted the company over $2 million"

€1000 Virtual Item Raises €2 Million In 4 Days

Venturebeat: "Bigpoint, which operates a few free-to-play games, has sold 2000 (and counting) items just in the last few days – for the whopping price of €1000 each."

Sony redesigns PlayStation Home as a social gaming hub

Gamesbeat: "jumping on the big trend in online games: social games with free-to-play business models, where users play for free and pay real money for virtual goods"

U.S. virtual goods revenue on Facebook to grow 32 percent to $1.65B in 2012

Gamesbeat: " fast-growing virtual goods and social gaming industries that use it are maturing"

Sony's DC Universe Online now a 'freemium' game

Los Angeles Times: "The move comes as traditional multiplayer online games that charge monthly fees come under economic pressure from social games, which are initially free to play, but sell virtual goods"

Facebook is set to pass $4B in revenue this year, thanks to Credits

Socialbeat: "Since last year, the amount of money Facebook collects from Credits has more than tripled,"

Online game subscription revenue declines as sales of virtual goods rise

Los Angeles Times: "IHS expects revenue from microtransactions to exceed the amount collected from subscriptions ... Zynga alone booked more than $830 million in revenue primarily from microtransactions in 2010"

Diablo 3 Taps PayPal for Virtual Goods Payments

WebProNews: "our research has shown that over 70% of gamers are PayPal users"

Facebook is set to pass $4B in revenue this year, thanks to Credits

Socialbeat: "Since last year, the amount of money Facebook collects from Credits has more than tripled,"

European Market for Virtual Goods in Games is Growing Rapidly

Marketwire: "The virtual goods market is expected to double in the UK, and triple across Europe, by 2014 according to the findings of a study* by the online payment service Skrill (Moneybookers), conducted by the research institute SuperData Research."

Gameforge hits 300M worldwide users for online games

Gamesbeat: "Alexander Roesner Kersting recently said that Gameforge had more than $150 million in revenue"

Verkauf virtueller Güter rockt

Internet World Business: "die hohen Wachstumsraten im Bereich des Item-Selling, das 2010 um 38 Prozent zulegen konnte, werden weiter anhalten. "Der Verkauf virtueller Spielgüter stellt eines der zukunftweisenden Erlösmodelle in der Gamesindustrie dar"

Second Life Makes $100M A Year in Revenue

ReadWriteWeb: "entirely user-generated economy built on real estate, virtual goods and services"

Tencent, China's $45 Billion Social Network Behemoth, Is All About Copying Others

San Francisco Chronicle: "it built a portal, a social network and a bunch of games, from which it makes tons of money through virtual goods."

Gamers using 'real world' money to purchase virtual content

Times of India: "It was also quite interesting to learn that women (37 percent) are nearly twice as likely as men (19 percent) to buy virtual items to decorate a page, persona or avatar"

12M monthly users are paying for virtual goods thru PayPal

Venturebeat: "Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/tencent-2011-8#ixzz1UEwe3NV3"

Marketers Are On Board with Virtual Goods

eMarketer: "Consumers around the world want branded virtual items ... US revenues from virtual goods in social games will grow by 21.3% ... estimates are based on PC-based social games and do not include console or mobile games."