A-Social Gaming?

Although I HATE the term 'social gaming' - since gaming in itself mostly is a social activity (either with other players or social interaction with your character in the game), I thought I'd post this well designed Infographic about 'social gaming' from Mashable, thanks to Lauren Drell.

It shows you something about the economics of social gaming and apparently some things have changed...! I told my audience yesterday that most of the time just 1% of all gamers is totally hooked on games and spends a lot of cash on in-game items, mostly 9% tries it for one time to see how it works and buys a few credits or in-game products and over 90% plays the game for free. You still need those 'free-players' however to establish a large consumer (player-) base.
This infographic however claims that over 80% of all 'social gamers' (read: gamers that play 'casual games' within 'social networks' or dedicated gameportals) spend REAL cash for VIRTUAL goods.
I found that amazing! Imagine how much money you can make selling virtual branded products in games. I know that Diesel is making MILLIONS in PlayStation Home selling virtual collection.

This graphic also says that Angry Birds have been downloaded 140 million times, but I recently read on Gamasutra that 500 million people are playing the game, so ... another reason why you shouldn't trust to much on research, data and these beautifully designed Infographics... But they give an idea what's happening on my Playground!