A new study by media firm Virtual Worlds Management claims that $1 billion has been invested in virtual world companies over the past 12 months, but is the spend justified?
The $1 billion worth of investment from venture capital, technology and media firms was spread across 35 virtual worlds companies, says the study.
Of the total sum, $810 million was spent on two acquisitions - Disney’s $700 million acquisition of Club Penguin and Intel’s $110 million acquisition of Havok.
The remaining $196.8 million was invested in 33 companies. Significant investors in the space included Redpoint Ventures, Charles River Ventures, CBS and Time Warner.
“We don’t see any slowing in the market adoption of virtual worlds technologies and expect investment in the space to continue,” said Christopher Sherman, executive director of Virtual Worlds Management.
“In fact the market is growing significantly, with the rate of adoption of virtual worlds increasing as the technology matures and has more to offer both consumers and enterprise customers.”
The results of the study, which will be discussed at the Virtual Worlds Conference and Expo taking place October 10-11 at the San Jose Convention Centre in California, come at a time when other research suggests that the impact of social worlds on consumers is waning.
"Despite near-continuous coverage in the popular and business press, metaverses like Second Life are experiencing slowing growth and limited impact because of the tethered nature of their virtual world experience," as opposed to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, the Yankee Group said Monday.