Is #FantasyKingdoms from #SneakyGames the next #Framville? It is for me and other #WoW geeks. # zynga #sxswi #icsx

I ran across this booth tucked away at SXSWi yesterday. Basically, Fantasy Kingdoms is fantasy version of Farmville/Fishville/et al. It looks fun and is in beta now. The owner and I got into an interesting conversation after I shot the video about just how much money Farmville is taking in. According to them, Farmville now has 80,000,000 users and the average spent by each is $.75 a month. I don’t know about the veracity of the amount spent by the users but I do know Zynga, the game company that created Farmville, has turned a profit every month since September 2007 and was expected to make more than $100 million last year ( http://bit.ly/cOZq8I). That’s a lot of money selling nothing virtually.

They way Farmville, and hopefully Fantasy Kingdoms, makes money is through micropayments. Games like World of Warcraft (WoW) make their money off monthly subscriptions. WoW has 11 million players paying $14.99 a month. That’s a lot of cheddar. But it’s also a huge commitment from the gamer to fork over $179.88 a year to play a game. There are only so many folks that can do that. But, most people can spare a buck or two to spruce up their farm with a shiny tractor or a decorative water well. And that’s the world micropayment games traffic in. A buck here and a buck there can add up to a whole lot when you have 80,000,000 playing your game.

Good luck to Fantasy Games. May your castles grow fast and your treasure vaults grow even faster.

Posted via email from Idea City's posterous