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Social Gaming
Social Gaming
Industry Report
Please see analyst certification (Reg. AC) and other important disclosures on page 5 of this report.
October 16, 2009
Industry Report
Over the last six months, growth in social gaming has exceeded our expectations, which could render our
original market size estimates conservative. We estimate the current market size for social gaming at about $60
million per month and expect it to grow at approximately 45% CAGR over the next three years to reach $2 billion
by 2012, driven by a combination of strong growth in usage as well as improving monetization.
Social Gaming Growth Has Far Exceeded Our Expectations: Usage of the social games has taken off much stronger
than we expected. Daily Active Users for the top 10 social gaming companies has gone up more than 5x over the last six
months, driven by the viral nature of these games, aggressive marketing campaigns by a few gaming companies, and
emergence of a few new genres of games, most notably Farm and Aquarium games.
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October 16, 2009
Industry Report
Games Are Now By Far The Biggest Category Of Applications On Facebook: The popularity of gaming on social
network is evident from the fact that 20 of the top 25 applications on Facebook are games (as measured by Monthly
Active Users or MAU; source: Developer Analytics), compared with 16 of the top 50 applications six months ago (as
measured by MAU; source: Facebook). We believe that the usage (as measured by MAU) is now even more skewed
toward games compared with six months ago.
Not Surprisingly, Conversion Rate (From Active Playing To Active Paying Users) Remains Pretty Small; We
Expect Some Improvement With Availability/Increasing Popularity Of Newer Payment Methods: Our conversations
with a number of social gaming companies suggest that the monetization curve is concentrated to the large players—with
only about 3-5% of the active users directly paying for the games. The ARPU curve for the direct paying users seems to
resemble any other free-to-play online game, i.e., heavily concentrated on the top users. Looking ahead, we believe that
there may be some room for improvement in the conversion rate (from active users to active paying users) driven by
availability/increasing popularity of newer payment methods (e.g., Facebook credits, more prepaid cards, mobile
payments).
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October 16, 2009
Industry Report
Indirect Pay Contributing Almost 30-50% Of The Social Gaming Revenue: We are seeing a nice pick up in indirect
pay, i.e., users paying for the virtual currency by opting for advertisers offers (lead generation for marketers such as
Netflix, Blockbuster, etc.) or taking online surveys. We estimate that the conversion rate could be slightly better for indirect
paying users—at about 4-5% (versus 3-5% for direct paying users) albeit with relatively lower ARPU.
We Expect A 45% CAGR For Social Gaming Market Over The Next Three Years: All in all, we estimate the current
social gaming market size to be about $60 million per month (run market of $720 million per year) and expect the market
to grow at about 45% CAGR to reach $2 billion within the next three years.
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October 16, 2009
Industry Report
The analyst(s) responsible for preparing this report has/have received compensation based on various factors, including the firm's total
revenues, a portion of which is generated by investment banking activities.
Rating Definitions
Effective October 7, 2009, ThinkEquity LLC moved from a four-tier Buy/Accumulate/Source of Funds/Sell rating system to a three-tier
Buy/Hold/Sell system. The new ratings appear in our Distribution of Ratings, Firmwide chart. To request historical information, including
previously published reports or statistical information, please call: 866-288-8206, or write to: Director of Research, ThinkEquity LLC, 600
Montgomery Street, San Francisco, California, 94111.
Buy: ThinkEquity expects the stock to generate positive risk-adjusted returns of more than 10% over the next 12 months. ThinkEquity
recommends initiating or increasing exposure to the stock.
Hold: ThinkEquity expects the stock to generate risk-adjusted returns of +/-10% over the next 12 months. ThinkEquity believes the stock
is fairly valued.
Sell: ThinkEquity expects the stock to generate negative risk-adjusted returns of more than 10% during the next 12 months. ThinkEquity
recommends decreasing exposure to the stock.
ThinkEquity LLC
IB Serv./Past 12 Mos.
Rating Count Percent Count Percent
BUY [B] 120 67.40 14 11.67
HOLD [H] 51 28.70 2 3.92
SELL [S] 7 3.90 0 0.00
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