Activision and Bizarre Creation's upcoming racing game Blur is the latest console game to integrate social networking features for the Facebook era.

The companies said Friday that gamers will be able to challenge Facebook friends in single and multiplayer modes, and share achievements directly from inside the game via a "Share" button within Blur's interface.

Users that connect Blur to Facebook can post in-game photos, racing stats, unlockable items and other content to the social networking site, Activision said.

Facebook claims to have over 400 million users. Both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 boast integration with the popular social network.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said that Blur is the first multiplatform game to have Facebook integration. "The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC will be able to link their console gameplay to their network of friends," he said.

Blur is slated for the release in the U.S. on May 25. Activision acquired UK-based Project Gotham Racing developer Bizarre in 2007.

PC digital distribution service Direct2Drive has expanded its reach to free-to-play games in the form of "starter packs," paid game downloads that bundle microtransaction-monetized games with predetermined sets of paid items.

"We saw a unique way to offer free-to-play content and help the consumer add value immediately," Direct2Drive content VP Sutton Trout told Gamasutra in advance of today's announcement.

The service's new "online games" section now includes numerous free-to-play games sold at various price points up to $19.95. Rather than paying a fee for the game itself, customers are effectively paying a discounted price on the included virtual items. Trout says the starter pack configurations are mainly determined by the games' developers and publishers.

Turbine's Dungeons & Dragons Online, which launched as a subscription game but became free-to-play last year, is offered as a single $19.95 bundle. Wicked's Ace Online, on the other hand, has half a dozen options.

Notably, Direct2Drive's "online games" page makes no explicit reference to the "free-to-play" model, and Trout says that's deliberate.

Several weeks after signs of the two companies' partnership began appearing online, Zynga and 7-Eleven have formally announced their deal to sell FarmVille-, Mafia Wars-, and YoVille-branded products at nearly 7,000 7-Eleven locations across the U.S. and Canada.

This six-week summer campaign, which Zynga notes is its first partnership with a retailer, begins on June 1st and will allow consumers to redeem exclusive virtual items in the social game developer's titles by purchasing branded products at the convenience store chain like Slurpee and Big Gulp drinks.

7-Eleven will unveil its revamped website in conjunction with the promotion's launch, and will feature the Zynga campaign prominently on its home page during its six-week run. It will also manage an advertising campaign across satellite/local radio, print, online, and outdoor. It will produce vignettes featuring characters from MTV's programs, too.

With the promotion, consumers receive a redemption code with specially marked products, which they can enter at BuyEarnPlay.com to receive a new, limited edition virtual good in one of three Zynga games (FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and YoVille). You can see the full list of exclusive virtual items and corresponding 7-Eleven products after the break.

Players can also earn an "über gift" (200 FarmVille cash, 50 Skill Points in Mafia War, and a virtual Slurpee machine in YoVille) by purchasing unique qualifying in-game goods or completing particular activities, such as "mastering a crop in FarmVille, vaulting a collection in Mafia Wars, and redeeming seven items in YoVille."

"Through our promotion with 7-Eleven, we are expanding our reach and making our games more accessible to consumers," says Zynga's Busines Operations SVP Vish Makhijani. "The opportunity to collect exclusive items for FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and YoVille that are found only at 7-Eleven stores creates a unique way for players to get the best social experience in our games."

Building on its efforts to bolster its social game offerings and match Facebook's success in that space, MySpace announced its Games Lab pilot program, which is dedicate to attracting third-party developers to its offices to "drive collaboration and facilitate great user experiences".

The social network says that partnering with developers is key, and that opening its platform allows MySpace and its users to benefit from the developer community's creativity. It mentions TheBroth (Hoop Fever Live) and avatar service Meez as early participants in the program, and is working with Playdom (Mobsters) to incorporate the studio's feedback and refine its product roadmap priorities.

"Working closely with MySpace has allowed us to launch and extend successful titles like Mobsters and Sorority Life," says Playdom CEO John Pleasants. "As we continue to collaborate, MySpace has been receptive to our feedback to update the platform with improved promotional and viral channels. Our symbiotic partnership ensures that our shared users will continue to enjoy unique social gaming experiences."

With the announcement, MySpace called attention to other advances in its social game offerings, such as Zynga unlocking the Bangkok chapter of Mafia Wars on the platform, Meez's userbase increasing to nearly half a million active users after six weeks on the social network, and the rise of the Open Social API, which MySpace has implemented.

The News Corp.-owned site has made several moves in recent months to improve and call attention to its selection of social games, such as last March's launch of a new MySpace Games Gallery section, which is designed to make it easier for users to discover and share games.

And just three weeks ago, the company also hired Manu Rekhi, formerly a product marketing manager at Google and the head of product strategy at social game developer LOLapps, as general manager for its games initiative. The social network is inviting developers to contact its team and "start a conversation to see how MySpace can support [their] games".

MMO developer and publisher True Games Interactive (Warrior Epic), a downstream subsidiary of India-based global media and entertainment company UTV Software Communications, announced that it will now operate under the name UTV Trade Games.

The Austin-headquartered company says its management, operations, and development will remain in place, and it will continue to work with external development studios such as Petroglyph, which the studio partnered with to create upcoming mythology-based MMORPG Mytheon. It also recently signed another unannounced project with a "leading online developer."

Founded in January 2008 by former executives from MMO service provider K2 Network, True Games was purchased by UTV in August of the same year. Since then, the companies have worked together to build its management team of industry veterans, two internal development studios (Austin and Beijing), a gaming platform, and a slate of online titles.

"When I first started True Games, I had a vision of where I wanted to take this company," says UTV True Games founder and CEO Jeff Lujan. "The strides we have made in building internal development teams in both Austin and Beijing, while building one of the industry's most comprehensive digital publishing platforms has exceeded even my expectations and much of that is due to the support that we have received from UTV."

He adds, "We have had a great working relationship with them and it is an honor to become a part of the UTV brand."

Gazillion Entertainment-owned NetDevil will be using Emergent's Gamebryo on its current project: the LEGO Universe MMO.

The all-ages online environment will be the first MMO based on the toy bricks. It's been long in the works; in 2008, the developer told us it had begun focus testing a full two years prior.

But the project's technical director, Erik Urdang, says that using Gamebryo, the team's artists began creating content within the first month of production. "We evaluated other engines and chose Gamebryo for its render pipe and memory management features, in addition to the significant engineering support which allowed us to optimize the technology," he says.

NetDevil, also developer of Jumpgate: Evolution has over 50 employees and is staffing up, describing more than one "large-scale" project in development.

As for Emergent, the company recently said it's seen strong performance over the past two quarters, with continuing growth in all territories driven in part by its newer Gamebryo Lightspeed platform.

In recent months, Emergent has also been visibly ramping up its base of licensees among Asian MMORPG developers; it's unveiled licensing agreements with Korea's Eya Soft, Shanghai-based Goldcool and Seoul-based JoyMaster Interactive, all of which are working on online role-playing games.

Social video game company Yoostar announced the appointment of former Acclaim Entertainment co-founder Gregory Fischbach as its new president and CEO. The New York City-based startup's founder and previous president/CEO Bousquet-Chavanne will now serve as co-chairman and jointly assume day-to-day executive functions with Fischbach.

Gregory Fischbach headed console/PC game developer and publisher Acclaim as co-chairman and CEO from its inception to 1987 all the way up to its bankruptcy in 2004 -- two years later, Acclaim Games, now a subsidiary of Playdom, purchase the brand but focused on free-to-play, browser-based MMOs.

The Acclaim veteran also served as president of Activision International and a member of its Management Committee from 1983 to 1986. He was chairman and one of he co-founders of the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) and ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) in the mid-1990s, too.

Established in 2007, Yoostar specializes in blending aspects of online video creation and sharing, social gaming, and social networking. It has worked with motion picture studios incorporate movie content, such as iconic scenes from feature films, in its social video game platform.

"By combining the forces of top movie content, Yoostar's proprietary special effects technology and the power of console computing, we can bring the magic and fun of Hollywood to every living room," says Fischbach. The firm is currently working with a "leading video game developer" to port its user experience to consoles, and will show off the project at E3 next month.

"We're creating the next evolution of Yoostar to incorporate a true social structure in the play mechanic of the game, allowing the user to post and share the video they create and to participate in a vibrant community with other players," adds Fischbach. "This will be the first 'Social Video Game' that bridges the worlds of social gaming, consoles and user-generated video content."

Developer Lemon and publisher Com2uS (IMO: The World of Magic), both mobile gaming firms based in Korea, announced a publishing agreement to release Fantasia, a cross-platform massively multiplayer online roleplaying game for smartphones and PC.

The deal includes an English version of Fantasia for iPhone/iPod Touch, and amounts to $3 million with a minimum guarantee. Lemon claims this is "the first attempt in Korea to build a developer-publisher relationship around the open market" for the App Store. You can watch a trailer for the 2D online game after the break.

Built on Lemon's proprietary Aseria game engine, Fantasia features many features common in PC and browser-based MMORPGs, such as player-versus-player battles, parties, guilds, and quests. The studio plans to begin a closed beta test for the online title in the second half of 2010, and release the game early next year.

"It took 4 years and $4.5 million to develop Fantasia," says Lemon CEO Hyo-Sung Yoon. "I am positive that Fantasia will become a killer game content for smartphone with its profound storyline and quality gameplay." Yoon also says he's happy to partner with Com2uS and highly values publisher's knowledge and marketing resources.

Just a day after the publisher announced its rebranding, UTV True Games has revealed Faxion Online, its first internally developed MMORPG, scheduled to enter its beta testing phase in late 2010.

UTV True Games operates two offices, its Austin headquarters and a development studio in Beijing. It's previously partnered with external developers to create its free-to-play projects like Petroglyph for Mytheon, and Possibility Space for Warrior Epic (the company's Chinese arm took over development on Warrior Epic expansions last year).

Faxion Online will offer a persistent world, player versus player combat, and a focus on territory control. Players will choose from two factions, the forces of heaven and hell, and fight in battles for control of territory and influence on behalf of their side. Users will also have different character-customization options as they pick their skills, abilities, and progression paths.

The online game will comprise of three different worlds players can battle over on launch: Heaven, Hell, And Limbo. UTV True Games promises that Faxion Online will put "an irreverent twist on the usually serious subjects of heaven, hell and the seven deadly sins." The developer adds that industry veterans behind titles like Shadowbane, Ultima Online, and others are working on the project.

Formerly known as True Games Interactive, the company announced yesterday its rebranding to UTV True Games, named after its parent company UTV Software Communications. The publisher said its management, operations, and development will remain in place, and it will continue to work with external development studios

"UTV True Games' goal for its first internally developed product, Faxion Online, was to build a team with experience and passion for PvP MMORPG games," says UTV True Games Austin studio head Frank Lucero. "When I log into the game, it is increasingly evident that the team's experience with PvP and territorial control games has paid off."

Yahoo! announced a partnership with social game developer Zynga to integrate its popular titles in the online portal/search engine's global network, further expanding the FarmVille firm's games beyond Facebook.

As part of the agreement, Yahoo's more than 600 million worldwide users will be able to play Zynga titles and access their personal game updates through the company's main homepage, Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Messenger, and other properties. The firm will begin rolling out those titles to its network in "the coming months."

The deal also includes the product integration of Zynga's titles with the Yahoo! Application Platform (YAP), which is the company's OpenSocial container allowing third-party developers to create applications for Yahoo.

Yahoo points out that this partnership and its recently announced team-ups with Facebook and Twitter are all part of its strategy to offer social experiences throughout its network, enabling users to "play social games, access and share information, and connect with the people that matter to them the most."

Zynga has worked to extend its games beyond Facebook in recent months, launching a standalone site for FarmVille and making the popular farming sim available through Microsoft's MSN Games portal. Two months ago, the developer also hinted at plans to create an umbrella site for all its titles, offering exclusive features, faster performance, fewer glitches, and more.

"Yahoo is focused on providing compelling, personally relevant experiences and social games are core to this experience," says Hilary Schneider, executive vice president of Yahoo! Americas.

She adds, "Zynga will bring top notch social game experiences to Yahoo!, including through our open platforms such as Yahoo! Application Platform and Yahoo! Updates. Yahoo! will also continue to work with other partners, developers and publishers to bring compelling innovations and experiences from across the web to our users."

Online game publisher Nexon Corp. announced that its worldwide revenues jumped up to ₩703.6 billion ($561.5M) in 2009, a 56 percent increase over 2008's revenues of ₩450.8 billion ($359.7M).

The South Korean-based firm also revealed that its North American publishing arm, Nexon America, posted a 31 percent growth in revenues to ₩57 billion ($45.5M) in 2009 over ₩43 billion ($34.3M) the previous year. For the first time in the company's history, non-Korean contributions made up the majority of Nexon's global revenue.

Nexon attributed the dramatic revenue increases to the popularity of Dungeon & Fighter, which has brought in over 200 million registered users and enjoyed a maximum concurrency of 2.4 million players from China, Japan, and South Korea. The company intends to launch the free-to-play MMORPG in North America as Dungeon Fighter Online on June 9th.

Its other free-to-play online titles like Maple Story and KartRider also contributed to the revenue growth. MapleStory has attracted some 95 million worldwide registered users (over six million in North America online), while KartRider has more than 200 million registered players around the world.

Nexon America's revenues are also off to a good start for 2010, as it's already grown more than 28 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to same period in 2009. The North American division points out that it's preparing to launch two titles: Vindictus (known as Mabinogi Heroes elsewhere) later this year and Dragon Nest in 2011.

"Nexon has perfected the free-to-play model worldwide and has applied it as a winning formula to very outstanding games," says Nexon America CEO Daniel Kim. "Here at home, we have been able to fend off the tough times and continue growing our revenues while adding more and more players to our games."

The CEO adds, "Going forward, Vindictus, Dragon Nest, and Dungeon Fighter Online represent the next generation of free to play games that should appeal directly to gamers in North American."

Every other week, we'll examine the most popular Facebook games (according to monthly active users), looking at the top titles and developers on the social network to who's attracting or losing players.

As it has been for months now, Zynga's FarmVille is at the top of the heap with 75.5 million monthly active users, though that is down from the 83 million high the farming sim attracted just two months ago. Many of the most popular social games have lost millions of players since Facebook made changes to how it handles application notifications, limiting the viral growth many titles enjoyed.

RockYou!'s Birthday Cards, which isn't really a game but is categorized as one anyway. The developer -- recently a recipient of the San Francisco Business Times' Technology and Innovation Award in the Social Media category -- has at least one real game on the top 20 list, though: Zoo World, which holds the #11 spot with 15.2 million users.

Zynga games take up the #3 to #7 spots with Texas HoldEm Poker (28.3M users), Treasure Isle (27.7M users), Cafe World (25.2M users), Mafia Wars (22.9M user), and PetVille (19.3M users). CrowdStar's Happy Aquarium ($17.4M users) and Electronic Arts/Playfish's Pet Society (16.9M users) take #8 and #9 respectively before Zynga comes in again at #10 with FishVille (16.6M users).

Outside of the Zynga-dominated top ten, you see a lot more variety in terms of developers (and game types somewhat). There's the aforementioned Zoo World, EA's Hotel City and Restaurant City, the MindJolt Games portal, Playdom's Social City, Zynga's YoVille, PopCap Games' Bejeweled Blitz, CrowdStar's Happy Island, Country Life, and Slashkey's Farm Town.

You can see the full list of the top 20 Facebook games along with exact monthly active user counts after the break:

RuneScape house Jagex is partnering with German browser game portal Bigpoint to serve its titles -- beginning with the popular fantasy MMO -- to Bigpoint's users in Germany and France.

Bigpoint's DevLounge game integration service takes credit for the rollout -- it's designed to make it easier for independent companies to launch their games on BigPoint's portal, the company explains.

According to BigPoint, the advantage for game companies is the portal's community of players -- it boasts over 120 million registrations, although doesn't specify how many of those are active players.

According to Jagex's head of online strategy Oliver Kern, it's a natural fit: "Bigpoint has achieved phenomenal success in France and Germany echoing our own success in the USA, UK and other English speaking territories, so we are confident that RuneScape will be an excellent addition to their games portal," he said.

"We believe Jagex’s current portfolio of games will strongly compliment Bigpoint’s existing titles, and we are really looking forward to releasing more Jagex games through the Bigpoint network in due course," he added.

Jagex will host, manage and support its own titles; BigPoint acts as online publisher, with responsibility for marketing and payment processing. Bigpoint said that serving popular RuneScape is an example of is strategy to offer "a wide range of gaming options" to its players.

Organizers of this October's GDC Online conference (formerly known as GDC Austin) have announced that they will host the first annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards, to recognize the rich history, technical excellence, and continued innovation in the arena of online games.

The new awards ceremony will honor the accomplishments of the sometimes overlooked creators and operators of persistent online video games – from large-scale MMOs through free-to-play titles to social network games. The awards span excellence in live services, technology, game updates, online game design, and more.

In addition, two special awards will honor outstanding individuals and games in the space, with the Online Game Legend Award being given to a person who’s changed the world of online games forever, and one particular all-time classic online game being inducted into the GDC Online Awards’ Hall Of Fame.

After award finalists are announced, the worldwide community of online game players will also have the opportunity to designate their favorite online game in the Audience Award category.

Nominations are now open, and game professionals with free Gamasutra.com user accounts can put forward their favorite online games for the awards. The GDC Online Awards are a sister event to the Game Developers Choice Awards which take place at GDC San Francisco every year.

The award categories and this year’s Special Award winners will be determined by the GDC Online Advisory Board. This group includes notables like BioWare Austin’s Gordon Walton, Metaplace’s Raph Koster, Playfish’s Sebastien De Halleux, and Nexon’s Min Kim.

Winners for the Game Developers Choice Online Awards will be selected by a specially selected subset of the International Choice Awards Network (ICAN). This is the same group of over 500 handpicked leading industry creators that pick the Game Developers Choice Awards winners at GDC in San Francisco every year.

The full list of categories for the first annual Game Developers Choice Online Awards (part of the UBM Techweb Game Network, as is this website) include:

Just a day after announcing favorable results for its 2009 revenues, Seoul-based MMO company Nexon Corp. has revealed that its acquired a controlling stake in Korean online game developer GameHi with a $59.8 million deal.

Nexon, best known for publishing popular free-to-play titles like MapleStory and Dungeon Fighter Online, is buying 29.3 percent of GameHi's shares along with management rights for control of the firm from president Kim Gun Il, the company's president and largest shareholder.

GameHi's catalog of releases includes free-to-play MMOs like Dekaron, Sudden Attack, Metal Rage, Transpee, and Spring. Its most popular title, Dekaron (pictured), is a 3D fantasy MMORPG and has so far picked up more than 20 million registered users across 50 countries.

Nexon's CEO Min Seo said he believes the two companies share a lot of synergies, according to a report from VentureBeat. The publisher also recently acquired a 67 percent stake in another Korean company, Atlantica Online publisher and developer NDoors Corp., and incorporated the studio as a subsidiary.

This announcement follows a day after Nexon revealed that its revenues for 2009 shot up by 56 percent to ₩703.6 billion ($561.5M), compared to ₩450.8 billion ($359.7M), in the previous year, thanks to growth in its overseas revenues and the increasing popularity of titles like Dungeon Fighter Online, MapleStory, and KartRider.

[As the social gaming space evolves and networks like Facebook begin to take the reins as true gaming platform-holders, what could it mean for virtual currency, and for the firms that sprung up in the big rush?]

One major driver in huge rush to social network gaming was the tremendous opportunity in microtransactions revenue from the sale of virtual goods.

But now that massive networks like Facebook are becoming platform-holders unto themselves -- and implementing their own universal credits system -- it seems the landscape could be evolving again.

Now, social network game developers find themselves faced with some of the same issues traditional ones do: paying royalties to platform-holders.

With the rollout of Facebook Credits, currently in testing, the social network is trying to make its universal currency a default choice from a trusted brand -- albeit with Facebook then taking a 30 percent cut of revenues.

This is a win for users, of course, who are effectively getting to consolidate their virtual wallets and won't have to worry about more than one type of currency.

Mobile virtual goods payments firm Boku announced that it's received a "strategic investment" (amount unspecified) from Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm led by Silicon Valley luminaries Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

Boku's service allows players to purchase virtual goods or currency in social games and apps by texting a listed cell phone number; users then receive an automatic charge on their monthly mobile bill. Its payment options are available through 190 carriers worldwide in 58 countries, reaching a potential 1.8 billion customers.

With the deal, the two tech veterans will take on an advisory role for Boku. Andreessen is best known for founding Netscape, while Horowitz is famous for co-founding and heading enterprise software company Opsware (purchased by HP in 2007 for $1.6 billion).

The mobile payments company also revealed two new executive hires: AT&T Interactive's former SVP and chief product officer David Yoo joins Boku as its senior vice president of Strategy, and MobiTV's former Sales VP Kevin Grant signs on as the company's senior vice president of Sales.

This new funding follows several months after the firm secured $25 million in a round led by DAG Ventures, with previous investors Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures and Khosla Ventures also participating. As of last January, Boku has so far raised $38 million since it was formed in March 2009.

"We did an extensive review of the mobile payments space and the players before deciding to work with Boku," said Andreessen, according to a report from VentureBeat. "We feel that Boku’s management team along with the company’s market-leading merchant relationships, global coverage, and technology will be a powerful combination as they continue their aggressive growth plans in a rapidly changing space."

iPhone social middleware developer Aurora Feint will release a new version of its OpenFeint SDK next month, the company said today, with a promise that developers will be able to "mix and match" between OpenFeint features and new functionality added by Apple's own iPhone social network, Game Center.

The Burlingame, California-based company says its software is in use by 8,000 official developers across 1,900 games, reaching a total registered player base of 25 million.

For OpenFeint 2.5, Aurora Feint has restructured its APIs, claiming it has made its so-called "twenty minute basic integration" go even even faster, along with "revamped social APIs for leaderboards, achievements, and Game Center compatibility." New to the middleware is support for turn-based multiplayer with push notification capability.

Aurora Feint says it has dozens of developers in the private beta of version 2.5, and as a result some games making use of the software have already been released to the App Store.

When Game Center was revealed earlier this year, there was speculation that Aurora Feint's third-party social network would suffer in the wake of an official Apple effort. Soon after the announcement, company founder Jason Citron expressed surprise at the move, but said Aurora Feint would work to integrate with the new initiative.

In a statement today, the company said "Game Center and OpenFeint co-existence [will be] seamless for developers who choose to use Game Center."

Coinciding with the Season 9 finale of the American Idol TV show, the franchise's creator and cross-platform developer Ludia have released American Idol Star Experience, a free downloadable PC game with heavy Facebook integration features.

American Idol fans enter their existing Facebook login information to create a game account and download American Idol Star Experience's Performance Creator component. With the Performance Creator, gamers can design stage performances, create and customize an avatar, choreograph dance moves, direct stage elements/camera angles/special effects, and more.

Players choose a song from "dozens of hits", selecting either pre-recorded voice tracks or recording their own voice with a karaoke-style setup. They can then upload their performances to Facebook, where others will watch it, rate it, choose favorites, leave comments, and discuss the best/worst submissions on the social network.

Montreal-based Ludia has a history of creating cross-platform titles based on popular brands such as The Bachelor & The Bachelorette, Family Feud, Hell's Kitchen, Press Your Luck, The Amazing Race, The Price Is Right, and Where's Waldo.

"We are excited to release a unique game experience based on American Idol, one of the most important entertainment franchises in the world," says Ludia founder and CEO Alex Thabet. "American Idol Star Experience reinforces our existing multiplatform game strategy, now seamlessly integrated with robust social features."

Research firm Frank N. Magid Associates and in-game commerce platform PlaySpan report that 13 percent of the North American population (12 to 64 years) with internet access purchase digital goods, and that those consumers spend an average of $99 on those items in 2010 -- a 14 percent increase over the average of $87 spent in the previous year.

In their second annual survey on "Virtual Goods Market Penetration and Growth in North America", the two firms found that the median of digital goods purchases grew 67 percent from $30 in 2009 to $50 in the current year. More than one-fifth, or 21 percent, of digital goods buyers said they intend to purchase more in the next 12 months, too.

iPhone owners made up the highest concentration of consumers purchasing digital goods with 43 percent of them buying apps, games, and more in 2010, compared to 28 percent last year. Virtual worlds users came in second place as 41 percent of regular visitors have bought a virtual item. 33 percent of handheld gamers and 32 percent of mobile gamers said they spent money on digital goods.

According to Magid Associates, 37 percent of consumers bought virtual goods from a free, web-based game, 29 percent bought from a free multiplayer PC game, 21 percent bought from a connected console marketplace (e.g. XBLA, PSN), 18 percent bought digital goods from a subscription-based multiplayer game like World of Warcraft, and 11 percent bought from a virtual world.

The firm also says that 31 percent purchased non-game related digital goods from a social networking site, and 29 percent spent money on a social game. Of the survey participants who said they purchased digital goods, 16 percent said they have used Facebook Credits, the social network's universal virtual currency system (currently in beta).

The online survey, which collected answers from 2,412 consumers between May 7-12, said that 57 percent of gamers who bought virtual goods purchased them in a game, while 38 percent acquired them on an official site outside of the virtual world or game. 16 percent said they bought their digital goods from an e-commerce site like PlaySpan, and 8 percent arranged an exchange with another player.

"There’s been a substantial increase in the number of consumers buying digital goods and an upward trend of players spending more on average than in the previous year," says Magid Advisors president Mike Vorhaus.

He adds, "With the proliferation of smartphone users, and players becoming more comfortable paying for items within virtual worlds and social networks, Magid believes there is a huge opportunity for developers and publishers to capitalize on this growing multi-billion dollar industry, especially as virtual credits and pre-paid payment options become more widely accepted."

In an exciting week for new job postings, Gamasutra's jobs board plays host to roles across the world and in every major discipline, including opportunities at Insomniac, Sledgehammer, Relic, and many 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:

Insomniac Games: SFX Artist
"Insomniac Games is an independent videogame developer with award-winning hits for the PS, PS2 and PS3. We created the first three Spyro the Dragon games, and the Ratchet and Clank franchise. We are also the team behind Resistance: Fall of Man, Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, Resistance 2, and most recently - Ratchet and Clank Future: A Crack in Time! If that's not enough, we've also have been named one of the Best Small Companies to work for, and have two fantastic studios - one in Burbank, CA and one in Durham, North Carolina. Come check us out!"

Relic Entertainment: Senior Artist/Lighter
"At Relic Entertainment we are developing an original game for PS3 and Xbox 360 and continue to build on our history of award winning games - games like Company of Heroes, Dawn of War, and Homeworld. Experience freedom of creativity and know your contribution is valued and recognized by the Relic team and also by gamers and industry experts around the globe.

"Life outside of Relic? You bet. We know, it's a novel idea, but one we not only embrace, we enforce. If you are going to live in Vancouver, you better have time away from work to take advantage of all this city has to offer. Vancouver is consistently ranked in the top most livable cities in the world. Where else can you get up and choose between beach volleyball, city nightlife, or boarding the glacier, all within 90 minutes? We've got mountains. We've got ocean. We've got a chill studio in the heart of downtown. And... We've got donuts every Friday. What more could you ask for?"