The Future of Social Gaming Isn’t All About Facebook

The bulk of social gaming revenue in the next three years will not come from Facebook, as you might suspect, but rather from alternative platforms that are dominant in other countries.

In a study conducted by SuperData Research on behalf of Viximo, a social games and applications platform, it found that non-Facebook social gaming will explode to $5.6 billion in 2014, up from an estimated $3.2 billion this year.

At that level, the study found that it will represent 65 percent of the overall projected revenue, including both Facebook and non-Facebook social gaming networks, which together are expected to hit $8.6 billion in 2014.

Most of the non-Facebook revenue will be driven by international markets, where Facebook is not dominant, including Asia, Russia, Brazil and Turkey.

Some of the social networks include Hyves in the Netherlands; Tuenti in Spain; StudiVZ, a student-focused site in Germany; and Badoo, a dating site in the U.K. The study does not take into account the entrance of Google into the industry with its games network on Google+.

Other findings:

  • Asia is the largest market for social games, with an estimated $2 billion in total revenue for 2011.
  • Russia and Brazil also have large social gaming audiences, with 35 million and 32.6 million people, respectively.
  • Germany’s social gaming revenue is expected to increase to $250 million in 2014, up from $173 million in 2011.

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