DragonAge developer BioWare released a new holiday-themed Facebook game, Gift of the Yeti, and will donate a penny to the Child's Play charity each time someone plays the title, contributing up to a total of $10,000.

Developed by the company's new R&D group BioWare Labs, Gift of the Yeti has players taking over for a sick Santa by delivering gifts on his behalf. They can compete with friends for high scores and send virtual gifts to invite others to play and support the charity. An Advent day calendar also reveals a new piece of the Yeti's backstory each day, encouraging players to return.

To further entice gamers to try out the social game, BioWare is giving away a 10 percent discount for its recently released multi-platform RPG Dragon Age: Origins through the EA Store to anyone who's played Gift of the Yeti.

Founded in 2003 by the authors of video game-themed webcomic Penny Arcade, Child's Play is a community-based charity supported by the video game industry and its fans, distributing toys, games, books, and cash to sick kids in children's hospitals worldwide.

"Gift of the Yeti is BioWare’s digital holiday card to its fans," says BioWare founder and EA's RPG/MMO Group general manager Dr. Ray Muzyka. "We use social networking as a powerful tool to connect meaningfully with our tremendous fan community. Gift of the Yeti is a fun, engaging holiday present from BioWare to our fans, the first in a series of compelling social experiences from BioWare Labs."

There's room for the burgeoning online game business in China to grow -- and it's set to do so quite rapidly, as internet adoption is expected to skyrocket in the next few years, to reach 73.1 billion yuan ($10.7 billion) by 2012.

Industry revenues are projected to reach 26 billion yuan ($3.8 billion) this year and grow by an average of 41.2 percent over the next three years, said Beijing-based research firm Analysys International.

There are currently 69 million online gamers active in the region, according to a Reuters report on the research -- but internet penetration is only at about 27 percent of the total population. In South Korea and Japan, by comparison, internet penetration is 70 percent.

This means that by 2012, there will be 230 million Chinese playing games online, thanks to rapid internet growth expected in the next three years.

The unanswered question is how much of an obstacle to growth Chinese regulators -- currently in something of a power struggle amongst themselves -- will be. Just recently, Blizzard's World of Warcraft hit regulatory snags on its way to relaunching following a transition to operator NetEase.

In the second quarter of this year, China's online game revenues grew 39.5 percent year-on-year to $906 million. Online operator Tencent Holdings leads in the region, followed by rivals Shanda and NetEase.

Mountain View-based startup Sibblingz announced its cloud-based game server allowing developers to design and build social games that not only offer virtual goods and micro-transactions, but also allow users to play the same game in the same social context across Facebook, iPhone, and the web.

The company explains the system's technical details: "Using the Sibblingz Platform involves choosing a social game design and developing it a common set of API's across the web, Facebook and the iPhone. These API's in turn access a common game back-end located in a cloud server farm, so the details of each user's game state is shared across all the front-ends."

Using this setup, players can interact with a particular game in lots of different ways, at home and on the go. For instance, they can log into Facebok at home and send a friend a challenge, run errands and check their in-game progress through their phone, and later play a web-based mini-game to earn virtual currency for the same game.

"I am really excited about offering a universal social gaming platform that will let users play the same game with their friends anytime, anyplace." says Sibblings co-founder Ben Savage. "We believe this is interesting to both indie developers and large corporations who want to deploy their entertainment content across multiple channels."

Sibblingz begins its private beta program for the platform this week (ending in Q1 2010) and invites game developers to view a "multi-channel" game demo and sign up at its official site. The startup will allow select private beta partners to work on the platform without any upfront costs, instead employing a revenue sharing program with developers.

"Its taken us almost two years to develop the extraordinary capability of the Sibblingz platform," says Sibblingz co-founder and chairman Peter Relan. "But now we finally can offer to game developers what is considered the holy grail of social gaming: develop game content once, and deploy across all the channels where users want to consume this content while keeping the same social context."

South Korean publisher Webzen (Huxley) has filed suit against Shanghai-based operator The9 om Seoul's district court, alleging that the Chinese company infringed its trademark for free-to-play MMORPG Mu Online.

Webzen claims that a clause in a 2003 contract signed by the two companies requires The9 to return MU's trademark to the Korean publisher upon request, after which The9 will no longer have authorization to use the trademark, according to a report from China-focused market research firm Marbridge Consulting. Webzen says The9 failed to relinquish that trademark.

The9 previously served as MU Online's operator in China until earlier this year when, to Webzen's surprise, it announced a new MMORPG called MUX, which was developed in-house. Many of MUX's elements and visual design appear similar to MU Online, which Webzen is currently developing a sequel for.

Though The9 later clarified that the name is an acronym for Miracle: Ultimate X and that it will use the full title going forward, the game's official site still uses a MUX logo. Webzen also says it believes Miracle: Ultimate X infringes on MU's background music and main characters.

This isn't the first time The9 has been accused of plagiarizing content from other MMOs; after losing its license for operating World of Warcraft to rival NetEase last June (a loss that resulted in its Q3 2009 year-over-year to fall by 94 percent), it announced World of Fight, an MMO many declared a rip-off of Activision Blizzard's product.

Webzen will file the dispute with the joint copyright arbitration committee operated by China and Korea's Ministries of Culture, who will mediate the dispute.

Online games publisher Nexon America announced that Won Il Sue, formerly CEO of parent company Nexon Corp., has returned to the firm to serve as its vice president of business development.

Sue will work out of Nexon America's headquarters in Los Angeles, where he will be responsible for managing the company's strategic partnerships and expanding its game development channels.

The publisher's current free-to-play titles include MapleStory, Combat Arms, Mabinogi, and Dungeon Fighter Online. It also plans to launch an online gaming portal called Block Party in early 2010.

Along with his tenure as CEO of Nexon Corp. from 2004 to 2005, Sue's business development and management experience includes Smartplay, an Internet startup he founded and also served as CEO for; and Neowiz Games in South Korea, which he headed as well.

"It feels great coming back to Nexon where I started," says Sue. "There’s been so much growth here in the US and Nexon America has done a fantastic job leading the market. I look forward to working hard alongside my Nexon colleagues and setting the stage for more explosive growth."

Mountain View-based social games developer Playdom hired Christa Quarles, previously the Internet Services managing director at investment banking firm Thomas Weisel Partners, as its chief financial officer.

Quarles spent almost a decade at Thomas Weisel Partners researching companies like Netflix, Yahoo, eBay, Google, and many others. Prior to that, the Harvard MBA grad was a summer associate at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and assistant vice president at Merrill Lynch.

Her background as an analyst has given cause for some, like Silicon Alley Insider, which first noticed the appointment, to speculate that Playdom hired its new CFO as preparation for the company to go public. Quarles' hiring follows only a month after Playdom revealed that it raised $43 million in its first venture capital funding round.

Playdom's social network games include Mobsters and Sorority Life, both available on Facebook and MySpace, though the developer has experienced more success with the latter service. Mobsters is currently the most popular game on MySpace with around 14.2 million users, according to data from Inside Social Games.

A new feature at sister site Gamasutra identifies and examines three key components that act as the foundation of successful social games: a persistent society, consistent sense of discovery, and virality.

"Beyond just allowing players to leave messages and compare scores, the goal of a social game should be to build a society," explained game designer Tony Ventrice. He says that game makers should promote cooperation amongst players in order to establish such a persistent society. "To achieve this, interdependence needs to exist; a true virtual society will only arise from a game environment where players can't fully succeed without the help of others."

Ventrice also said that one of the fundamental traits of a successful social game is a consistent sense of discovery -- whether that sense comes from acquiring and collecting items Pet Society, or creating user-generated content in games like (fluff)Friends. "Players should feel as if they are evolving both their in-game persona as well as influencing the game world around them," said Ventrice.

And one of the features that gets perhaps the most attention in the social gaming space is the virality of a game, the third component that Ventrice identifies and breaks down.

"This facet of social game design is made possible by the widespread adoption of online social networks like Facebook. Social networks provide a pre-existing web of low-barrier-of-entry connections," wrote Ventrice.

He added, "Games that tap into the trust and familiarity existing between friends have the opportunity to spread effortlessly on an exponential scale. Once a game finds a new user, however, if it is going to continue spreading, it needs to retain and convert that user into a new evangelist."

For a more in-depth look at the different facets of these three key features that make up the foundation of successful social games, read the full Gamasutra feature, available now.

Every week, we'll examine the most popular Facebook applications (according to MUA, monthly active users), as well as the social network's up-and-coming apps that have picked up the most users in the past seven days.

Zynga's FishVille, which reigned at the top of the "gainers" chart for the past three weeks, was unseated by RockYou's custom e-card application Birthday Cards. The aquarium simulator still picked up an impressive number of users, adding 3.4 million (+14.1 percent) to its 24 million total.

CrowdStar's Happy Pets and Zynga's FarmVille both dropped down a place on the chart to #3 and #4 respectively, the former enjoying a 31.1 percent gain with 2.3 million new pet owners, and the latter bringing in 1.9 million (+2.6 percent) new farmers.

The holiday season is certainly on Facebook users's minds, as two more e-card apps, Christmas Cheer and Christmas Cards, pushed their way into #5 and #6. Mob Science's Snowball Fight at #7 (1.5 million, +41.4 percent) and Zynga's Cafe World at #9 (1.1 million, +3.4 percent) re-appeared this week at around the same spot.

IGG Inc.'s Fish Isle dropped from #5 to #10, but still attracted a million new players and grew by more than a third. RockYou's Zoo World and LOLapps's World War II RPG Band of Heroes fell from the top 10 chart completely to #11 and #22.

MMO developer and publisher True Games Interactive announced the consolidation of its two U.S. offices, which will moves its headquarters from Irvine, California to Austin, Texas. The company also revealed the appointment of Electronic Arts veteran Mick Giles as its chief technology officer.

True Games established its game development studio in Austin earlier this year, and says it's moving the main office to the area due to "continued growth, stronger internal communication, and a heavier focus on its game development", as well as the city's "excellent talent pool." The publisher recently opened a development house in Beijing to handle its Warrior Epic franchise, too.

"Over the course of the year our company has changed from a publishing-only focus to one that includes a heavy emphasis on our game development," says True Games founder and CEO Jeff Lujan. "Bringing our North American staff together under one roof will allow us to grow and nurture our development process, while also providing synergies and complementary support to our development team in Beijing."

The consolidation comes a week after European online games portal GOA said it's terminating its local Warrior Epic servers due to the free-to-play game's failure to attract a sizeable player base in the region. The operator also cancelled the upcoming Euroepan release of True Games's other major title, Mytheon, to focus on other games in its catalog.

True Games's new CTO previously served as senior director of Online Operations for North America and Asia, as well as senior director of Technology for Worldwide Studios at Electronic Arts for three years. Prior to that, Giles was executive director of Technology at Turbine and the director of Platform Technology at Sony Online Entertainment.

"Mick brings to the team an extensive background in technology, operations, platform management and more, and we look forward to adding his expertise to our management team," comments Jeff Lujan. "With one live game in Warrior Epic and one game about to go into beta in Mytheon, as well as multiple games in development, his expertise and experience is a welcome addition to the team."

Another controversy is brewing with those virtual currency offers featured alongside social games, though with a different twist this time. GetHealthReformRight.org, a group that opposes the U.S. Senate's proposed health care reform bill, is giving out in-game cash in exchange for pre-written emails sent to Congress that argue against the bill.

These lead generation offers typically give out virtual currency for social network games like FarmVille and Pet Society to users who sign up for trial subscriptions, fill out surveys, or complete other tasks. The Get Health Reform Right offer, though, asks participants to fill out their personal information, then sends a message with the following excerpt to their state's senators and house representatives:

"As the Senate considers healthcare reform, I'm writing to express my strong opposition to a government-run health plan. I am concerned a new government plan could cause me to lose the employer coverage I have today. More government bureaucracy will only create more problems, not solve the ones we have."

GetHealthReformRight.org's list of partner organizations include Association of Health Insurance Advisors, America's Health Insurance Plans, American Benefits Council, BlueCross BlueShield Association, Healthcare Leadership Council, Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers, National Retail Association, and several others.

Toronto-based developer Social Game Universe announced that it's picked up several investors for its upcoming Facebook games. While the company didn't disclose specifics on the deal, it described its backers as "visionaries" from the music and animation industry.

The startup's investors include Eli Cohl and Michael Cohl, innovative promoters for bands like U2 and the Rolling Stones; Clive Smith, co-founder of animation studio Nelvana (Babar, Tintin); Gary Slaight, former CEO and president of Standard broadcasting; and Dr. Ron Dembo, founder and CEO of environmental organization Zerofootprint.

Social Game Universe also named Universal Music Canada CFO Bruce Hooey and Citytv/MuchMusic co-founder Moses Znaimer as backers. "It's an honor to be working with such a talented and visionary group of investors," says the developer's CEO Nathon Gunn.

Social Game Universe also started beta testing its first applications destined for Facebook: Hollywood Tycoon, an adaptation of the similarly titled single-player PC game; and Avastar, in which players customize superstar characters and homes, while interacting with their friends on the social network (trailer after the break).

"Our goal is to truly enable the 'social' aspect of social gaming," says Gunn. "We are excited about our innovations in this area, which we'll be unveiling in Q1, 2010."

Habbo Hotel developer Sulake launched Habble, a new measurement tool that helps marketers track the level of online conversations taking place about their brands in the teen virtual world. The company believes this new tools could provide fly-on-the-wall insight into the "media-savvy" under-18 demographic.

Habble was designed to enable advertisers to measure the value return from their ads featured in Habbo Hotel. Working alongside existing metrics like click-through rates, time spent, friending levels, and impressions, advertisers can monitor how often their brand's name, slogan, or key phrases are mentioned, then cross-reference them with other data to see if their messages are reaching Habbo Hotel's audience.

Sulake reassures users that all of their conversations remain anonymous and that advertisers do not actually have access to their personal information. Habbo Hotel's global userbase currently consists of more than 155 million registered avatars, with most of its users aged under 19 years.

The tool was recently tested for MTV International during an in-game campaign promoting the MTV European Music Awards, and Habble was able to record that its users conversations around the awards increased by 371 percent in the UK and 762 percent in the Netherlands.

"Habble helps brands understand if a message is getting through," says Sulake's SVP of Global Ad Sales Phil Guest. "To engage with young people, brands first need to become part of the conversation, and this new tool provides another level of insight into this hard to reach demographic."

He continues, "It is helping our advertisers understand the value of running advertising promotions in Habbo Hotel, not only showing the uplift from a promotion, but more interestingly, the continued discussion long after the brand promotion has finished. Knowing this, brand marketers can build on the conversation by engaging brand advocates to spread the word."

As organizers of GDC 2010 start to announce the line-up, the new Social & Online Games Summit has revealed initial speakers for the March 9th-10th event, including Zynga, Playfish and IMVU execs talking Farmville, Spore Worlds and more.

The major new three-track Summit, taking place on the first two days of Game Developers Conference 2010 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco next March, has been designed to educate and inspire on the rise of socially connected gaming.

As the Summit advisors, which include notables like Metaplace's Raph Koster, Habbo's Sulka Haro, Playdom's Steve Meretzky, and Playfish's Sebastien de Halleux, explain: "Today we see that many of the most popular games in the world are played on social networking services such as Facebook, MySpace, and hi5. These games are capturing tens of millions of mainstream users, people who do not consider themselves gamers."

GDC 2010's Social and Online Games Summit has been engineered to sit at the intersection of multiple converging trends, "bringing together leading thinkers and businesspeople to provide the attendee a snapshot of the industry and where it is going."

With other major lectures and keynotes to be announced soon, a number of significant talks have been revealed on the Summit homepage. These include:

3D character model and avatar tool developer Evolver said Thursday that its service will be integrated into game engine provider Emergent's Gamebryo LightSpeed development system.

"Our partnership with Emergent provides LightSpeed developers with an easy way to integrate custom 3D characters into their latest projects at a fraction of the production time, effort and costs of traditional modeling and rigging methods," said Brian Nilles, Evolver CEO.

Evolver's system is a web-based application that allows users to design and customize 3D models. Users choose from a library of facial and body characteristics from Evolver's website, or they can use a photograph. They can then export the avatar.

"Professional characters can also be purchased royalty free for a low price point of $39 -- or $69 with 77 blendshapes ready for facial animation," Evolver stated. The company also offers a white label version of the tool if developers want to make the avatar creator available to their own audience.

Emergent is continually adding new tools to Gamebryo LightSpeed's feature set. Most recently, earlier this month the company said Gamebryo LightSpeed would support sky and lighting capabilities provided by Sundog.

Reporting results from its congressionally mandated study on children possibly accessing explicit content in virtual worlds, the Federal Trade Commission says it found objectionable material in 70 percent of the online worlds it investigated.

Congress tasked the FTC with examining the matter in May of this year, prompted by concerns over minors easily accessing explicit content in virtual worlds. As part of the study, the commission scrutinized 27 popular virtual worlds and MMOs (e.g. Second Life, YoVille, Neopets, Habbo, Dofus, Runescape) as a cross section of worlds targeting children, teens, and adults.

Researchers for the agency registered in each world as adults, teens, and children, recorded their actions and content they came across in the virtual environment, then identified their level of explicit content (based on factors measured against a subjective metric established by the FTC) as either heavy, moderate, or low.

The Commission says it encountered at least one instance of either sexually or violently explicit content in 19 of the 27 virtual worlds it investigated. Five of those exhibited a heavy amount of explicit content, four presented a moderate amount, and ten displayed a low amount. Of the 14 children-oriented worlds observed, seven contained no explicit content, six demonstrated a low amount, and only one showed a heavy amount.

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have announced its first set of Main Conference lectures for the March 9th-13th event, with Uncharted 2, Braid and Brutal Legend-specific talks already confirmed.

An initial set of talks for the Audio, Business, Design, Production, Art, and Programming tracks for next March's event -- as well as a number of online/social game-specific sessions -- are now viewable in GDC 2010's schedule-building app or via the official Game Developers Conference website.

Organizers of the industry-leading San Francisco-based event (part of Think Services, as is this website) will be highlighting track-specific talks gradually over the next few weeks, but some of the notable lectures already posted include:

- Among Friends - An Uncharted 2: Among Thieves Post-Mortem (Production Track)
In this postmortem, Naughty Dog co-lead game designer Richard Lemarchand examines what went right and wrong in the creation of the critically acclaimed PS3 title, "...in expanding our gameplay through the use of new traversal, combat and AI technologies, introducing characters that shed new light on our hero Nathan Drake, and tackling our first foray into multiplayer in four years."

- Rock Show VFX - The Effects That Bring Brutal Legend to Life (Art Track)
Two of Double Fine's key employees -- lead platform programmer Peter Demoreuille and technical/VFX artist Drew Skillman -- will discuss the making of the visual effects for action-adventure Brutal Legend, covering "the design and most commonly relied upon features of our particle rendering, simulation, effects timeline and climate packages."

Norwegian developer and publisher Funcom (Age of Conan, Anarchy Online) established SweetRobot, a subsidiary that will focus on producing massively multiplayer online games for social and casual markets.

"SweetRobot will be focusing on publishing games outside the traditional high-end MMO-segment which Funcom has been focusing on the last years," says Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas. "This will allow us to explore new market opportunities that differ from what we have been doing before while still retaining Funcom’s familiar profile. This definitely marks a new and exciting direction for us."

The branch's first project, Pets vs. Monsters, has been in the works for nearly two years, supported by a team of 15 employees. Along with developing the title, the group has created a game engine designed for future customizations to work with multiple concepts. SweetRobot plans to use the MMO as an opportunity to experiment with different gameplay ideas and business models.

Though Pets vs. Monsters targets children aged between eight and twelve years, it includes familiar role-playing mechanics like statistics, equipment, and loot to keep "incentivize progress". Players are accompanied by a pet they can ride into battles with, and they can chat with others players around the world and explore different settings like deserts and jungles.

SweetRobot hasn't announced a release date for the free-to-play kids MMO but promises that a public beta for Pets vs. Monsters will open later this month. The studio hopes that the beta will help it gather valuable feedback from its target audience that will be taken into account with the game's direction and development.

While Funcom says it will continue to keep "high-end online games" like Age of Conan and The Secret World as its primary focus, it's eager to explore the opportunities that the social gaming segment brings. The company believes its experience with creating online worlds and communities make this expansion into the space a natural step.

"Pets vs. Monsters is very much an exciting project for us, our first attempt at creating an online game for a younger target audience with gameplay mechanics and production values that differ from what we have done before," says Aas. "The fact that these productions require significantly lower budgets and smaller teams to develop is very attractive to us, as it allows us to try out several concepts instead of placing all our resources into one single bet.”

You can see screenshots of Pets vs. Monsters after the break!

PlayStation Home director Jack Buser indicated that Sony is positioning its free virtual world as a platform open to studios who want to create social games for the PlayStation 3-based online space.

"We have developed a forum for developers to come in and develop 3D social games," said Buser, according to a report from consumer game blog Kotaku. He added that the forum's goal is to encourage developers to create what he calls "mini MMOs" for Home.

Launched with an open beta test exactly one year ago, the hub allows PS3 console owners to create a custom avatar, decorate a personal apartment, chat with friends, purchase clothing/accessories/furniture, watch videos, play mini-games, and interact with branded spaces created by video game developers and other companies. As of last September, PS3 owners worldwide had downloaded Home more than eight million times.

Buser didn't reveal what specific mini MMOs or 3D social games are in the works from Sony or third-party developers, but he did point to existing experiences already available in the service like Ratchet & Clank's scavenger hunt and shooting game, and Uncharted 2's strategy mini-game as examples of where Home could be going.

In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from 2K Marin, Koei Canada and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

2K Marin: Multiplayer Systems Designer
"2K Marin is looking for a dedicated, passionate and personable Multiplayer Systems Designer to join us on an exciting unannounced project. As a Multiplayer Systems Designer, you'll be in charge of taking high level goals and translating them into game systems and moment-to-moment experiences."

Guerrilla Games: Lighting Artist
"Ready to set Guerrilla alight with your awesome lighting skills? As a member of the lighting team, you will collaborate with level designers and environment artists to literally light the way for gamers, so they can enjoy our games to their fullest. You will work with our cutting-edge deferred rendering engine, adding lighting to levels and cut scenes using both real-time and pre-rendered solutions. You will take concepts created by our visual design team and turn them into reality within our levels, working closely with the art director to ensure that our vision is achieved."

Mobile social gaming technology provider Scoreloop announced that its infrastructure and toolset for the iPhone now supports Android. Publishers and developers for Google's mobile operating system can now take advantages of Scoreloop's Core Social white-label technology and Premium Integration Services.

Some of Core Social's iPhone offerings now available for integration in Android projects include social features like online high scores, acheivements, player challenges (through Facebook, email, or Scoreloop's auto matching system that pairs opponents with similar skill), profiles, social network integration, score/achievement posting, virtual currencies, and more.

Scoreloop's technology also allows for play across the two platforms. Games that are available on both the iPhone and Android share the same online leaderboards, and players on one platform can challenge users on the other. Additionally, they can sign into the same game on two different platforms using only one login.

The tech provider offers Core Social and Premium Integration Services for free to companies by monetizing through referral revenues and coin purchases. To demonstrate its products, Scoreloop offers a demo game, Bug Landing, on both the iPhone App Store and Android Market for others to test the cross-platform play. It adds that iPhone users will see a push notification about challenges even if they're received from an Android player.

"We continue to have great success on the iPhone and we are now bringing social gaming capabilities to Android for a complete cross-platform experience," says Scoreloop CEO Marc Gumpinger. "We are still dedicated to the iPhone, but publishers are extremely limited by device fragmentation and the fact that most friends aren't on the same handset."

He adds, "When it comes to mobile social gaming, we are helping our partners reach players cross-platform. Together with our partners, Scoreloop is focused on the common goal of providing a quality game with an excellent end user and brand experience."

58% of all users have bought virtual goods from inside free-to-play games, significantly more than more traditional titles, according to a study by digital goods monetization firm PlaySpan.

Based on a survey of 2,425 of PlaySpan users who had bought digital goods from publishers within the last year, VGMarket found that 58 percent of users bought goods from within a free-to-play game -- the highest proportion -- while 34 percent of users made in-game purchases in MMOs and 23 percent made purchases from social games.

Traditional online PC, console, and casual games saw much lower digital goods pickup: 12 percent, 9 percent, and 9 percent respectively.

And not only did free-to-play games see the highest purchase penetration among users, they also generated the most money on a per-user basis. The average user's expenditure on publisher-sold free-to-play digital goods over the course of 12 months was $75, compared to $60 for MMOs, and $50 for social network games.

As with the penetration statistics, more traditional gametypes saw lower annual expenditure, but those games of course also derive their primary revenue from up-front purchase cost. Respectively, online PC games, online console games, and casual games saw digital goods spending of $40, $36, and $29.

And as for what people are buying? Spam doesn't lie: People like purchasing in-game currency. Among both publisher-sold digital goods and digital goods sold by external parties, currency was by far the most-wanted commodity.

Among publisher-sold goods, 73 percent of buyers bought currency, 40 percent bought weapons, 32 percent bought wearable items, and 30 percent bought subscription codes. Third-party-sold goods saw similar proportions.

Of those who buy, 24 percent say they do so every day, while 65 percent say they do so at least once a week, which indicates why annual figures are so high despite individual transaction costs traditionally being quite low.