Industry Gamers is reporting on comments made by Peter Relan, chairman of social game maker CrowdStar, at a recent Lazard Capital Markets conference. The site also spoke to Lazard analyst Colin Sebastian to give further insight on Relan’s comments. Relan told the conference audience that as few as one to three percent of people who play social games are converted to paying customers. He also noted a demographic for social game fare that skews older female, a drastic departure from traditional videogames young male audience. Sebastian told Industry Gamers there is optimism in Relan’s analysis, saying the low conversion coupled with a large audience represents a runway for growth in the booming social game category. In reference to demographics, he said few traditional game companies other than EA have tried their hand at social games but that he sees more investing in the space this year. Sebastian forecasted healthy growh for the category, pointing to his firm’s estimate that worldwide social game revenues will double from last year to reach $1.3 billion in 2010. Sebastian and Relan separately cited Facebook s recent launch of game payment platform Facebook Credits as a positive step. The platform could take as much as 30 percent of transactions it facilitates, more than tripling the average game makers currently pay. But it’s expected to significantly boost the number of people paying to play games on the site. Read more at Industry Gamers {link no longer active}.

Few Players Pay For Social Games
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