Avatar and 3D virtual world company IMVU revealed that it doubled its revenue in one year to a $25 million run rate, achieving profitability. This was possible through a growth in sales of virtual currency to its users, who purchase virtual goods like avatar customizations and furniture for online spaces.

Launched in 2004, IMVU claims more than 40 million registered users and six million unique visitors. Over 35,000 developers have sold their goods through IMVU in just the last 30 days, adding some 4,000 new items to the online world's catalog every day (IMVU takes a percentage from each sale).

The company recently established a new advertising sales and sponsorship group to work with its ad partners, installing music business veteran Danny Wright as the department head. After five years of relying on its direct sales profits, IMVU hopes to boost its efforts and revenues in advertising to its audience.

"We're proud to have grown revenue so quickly at a time when consumers have been cutting their personal spending," said Cary Rosenzweig, CEO of IMVU. "We attribute our success to five years of hard work by our employees and to the creativity of our members. We're investing most of our profits to hire more employees so that we can further improve the customer experience."

Nexon America (MapleStory, Dungeon Fighter Online) has begun rolling out BlockParty, a free service that will replace Nexon.net as the company's online portal for its games and as a social network.

The publisher posted an animated preview of the upcoming service across all of its game sites. The clip introduces the new initiative's "Blockheads" mascots and BlockParty's planned features, which both new and current visitors will be able to access after registering for a free Nexon Passport.

Along with serving as a centralized portal for launching the company's games and accessing accounts, Block Party will enable players to customize profile pages, receive news updates on their games, post thoughts onto their "wall", setup buddy lists, and follow their friends' in-game accomplishments with the "Play Feed".

Though Nexon America did not reveal a firm date for BlockParty's formal opening, the publisher says the service will "be online at BlockParty.com in the coming months", and that it will begin conducting beta tests throughout the remainder of 2009.

"BlockParty will be one part games, one part portal with a twist of social networking," says Nexon America's marketing VP Min Kim. "Nexon America's goal for BlockParty is to create the biggest online party with great games and awesome gamers."

"BlockParty will allow Nexon to better serve our players by extending the community experience to a central web-based communication hub. BlockParty will also make it easier for players to access Nexon's growing list of games, and at the same time, allow them to share their online gaming adventures with their friends."

Finnish developer Sulake, creator of popular social virtual world Habbo, will lay off about 40 staffers, according to media reports.

The company will engage in redundancy negotiations with the affected workers, who represent about 20 percent of its global staff, reports PaidContent, citing Finnish media and Twitter users claiming the reductions are centered in Helsinki.

Sulake, which employs about 300 staff across 13 countries, claims about 12 million monthly uniques worldwide for the 'tween-friendly Habbo. In 2008, it reported €50 million ($73.6 million) in revenue for the year, but profits of €1 million ($1.5 million).

The company also operates Finnish social networking company IRC-Galleria, and recently launched Bobba, a virtual world for smartphones, a version of which it hopes to bring to PC, aimed at an older demographic than Habbo.

We've contacted Sulake for comment and will update with any details we receive.

Hardcore online games portal ijji.com, an Irvine-based subsidiary of Korea's internet services company NHN, has attracted more than 9 million registered players since launching in 2006.

The company increased its user count by 40 percent in the past year by offering free-to-play titles in a wide range of genres, from first-person shooters to car racing to MMORPGs. The portal's most popular games include Lunia, GunZ: The Duel, Soldier Front, and Drift City.

ijji.com also plans to launch four new titles in the coming months: Soul of the Ultimate Nation, a fantasy-based MMORPG; Alliance of Valiant Arms, an Unreal Engine 3-based online-first person shooter set on "the deserted urban streets of a modern day world war"; KARMA: Operation Barbarossa, another FPS that takes place in an alternate reality Europe under German control; and Huxley, Webzen's MMO mixing FPS action with a character advancement system.

"Gamers have made ijji.com their destination of choice because we dared to be committed to fast action, intense online games,” says Philip Yun, CEO of ijji.com's host NHN USA. "The recent flood of new memberships serves as an amazing validation that we are on the right track, offering an unequaled collection of quality, hardcore games in one place."