Virtual economies & kids

Virtual worlds make their money very differently from social-network sites - mostly from selling virtual objects. Though Disney's Pixie Hollow and Webkinz and Webkinz, Jr. sell real objects such as "friendship bracelets" and plush toys, the economies of most virtual worlds (and multiplayer online games) rely on objects and artifacts such as clothing, furniture, and other property. Social sites, which to date have focused more on display ads, too, are moving into virtual-object retail (see this about Hi5 selling virtual gifts). A figure cited by The Economist indicates everybody may be moving in this direction, though there's much to be learned about this business model. The article mentions that users at a popular VW aimed at teens, Gaia Online, "spend more than $1 million per month on virtual items." Gaia recently hired a full-time economist, The Economist says, "to grapple with problems that are well known in the real world, such as inflation and an unequal distribution of wealth" (maybe child psychologists will need to employed too!). The British news magazine otherwise paints a more measured picture of virtual-world popularity than do other news outlets, but the figure it cites is "regular visitors," not overall registered users. "In America, nearly 10 million children and teenagers visit virtual worlds regularly," it refers to eMarketer as finding. Virtual Worlds News earlier cited data from Strategy Analytics projecting an overall global population of 186 million now, growing to 640m by 2015 (users of all ages - I blogged about that here). My most recent post on VW population is here.

More on virtual world growth

Heard of Spineworld? I hadn't. But a 10-year-old I know told me he's seeing it everywhere in his circles. Now we know from UK-based market researcher K Zero that its population (registered users) has more than doubled since first quarter '09, from 1 million then to 2.8 million now, according to VirtualWorldsNews. Overall, "the total number of registered accounts in the virtual worlds sector totaled 579,000,000 in the April-June quarter, 2009. That's an increase of 38.6% from the prior quarter when the tally was 417,000,000." K Zero adds that 60% of all virtual world users are between the ages of 10 and 15, "followed closely" by 5-to-10-year-olds, reports in its 2nd-quarter '09 update The problem is, its eye-grabbing chart is pretty imprecise, making it appear that more than 75% of the total VW population are 10-15 years old and that 5-to-9-year-olds represent about a quarter, with nothing left over at all for users 16+. As for individual kid worlds, besides Spineworld's, some of the biggest gains were seen by Stardoll, which added 8 million users; Club Penguin (6 million); Nicktropolis (3.1 million); and UK-based Moshi Monsters (3 million). The reports says Poptropica gained 36 million users, but that must be a typo, right? [See also "Undercover Mom in Poptropica" and in Stardoll, and our complete Undercover Mom series.]

Kids' virtual-world numbers: Update

Some 8 million US kids and teens spent time in virtual worlds on a regular basis last year, according to eMarketer, which expects that figure to grow to 15 million by 2013. The market research firm estimates that 37% of kids 3-11 play in virtual worlds at least once a month, and 54% will by 2013. According to conference organizer Virtual Worlds Management, as of this past January, there were 112 virtual worlds aimed at people under 18, with another 81 in development. Here's a comprehensive look at a new one aimed at that full under-18 age range, Free Realms, by master moderator of kids' virtual worlds, Izzy Neis.