BizSugar.com › Marketing › Why Social Gaming Will Be Big Business for Brands

Social gaming is a lot like Marmite. Half of people see them as a waste of time, whilst the other half could happily fill their days playing Word Challenge, Texas Hold-em and Mob Wars. With over 50% of social network users estimated to play them, social gaming is big business, and generating millions every year for its creators.

Between 2008 and 2009 the social gaming market exploded, growing from £49 mill to £412 mill (and £31.6 mill in the UK alone) in just 1 year. Social gaming developers are now being swallowed up by the major players for big bucks. Disney paid nearly £500 million for Playdom, whilst Google paid £64.5 million for a 30% share of FarmVille’s creators Zynga (which has 63 mill active players, making it bigger than Twitter).