Offerpal Releases Study on Gamer Behavior

Derived from a study conducted by comScore on behalf of Offerpal, the numbers indicate that social gamers are enthusiastic about alternative, or indirect, payment methods as a way to earn virtual currency for free rather than having to pay for it directly.

According to the study, 53.3% of the total respondents reported that they would be "very likely" to complete a marketing action such as filling out a survey, watching a video, shopping at online retailers or signing up for a subscription in order to get points for the games they play on leading social networks.

By comparison, only 22.8% of the respondents reported that they would be willing and are able to buy the points using cash payment methods such as credit cards, PayPal, bank transfers or mobile billing. The study found that 29.7% of social gamers do not have the ability or the means to pay for virtual currency with cash options, and even among those who do have the ability and the means, 34.9% say they are "very unlikely" to part with their money in order to purchase points.

When asked to indicate how likely they would be to use indirect payment methods to earn points in the games they play, the top preferred marketing actions included, in order, completing a free survey, watching a video, completing tasks such as tagging a photo or proofreading a document, shopping for clothes or other goods online, subscribing to a magazine and subscribing to a movie rental program.

Other findings from the report include:

+Gamers in the 25-34 age range are most likely (70.9 % "very likely") to be willing to earn virtual currency through marketing actions;

+ Most of the gamers (54.5%) report playing games online at least once a day; 26.7% reported playing several times a week; 11.5% play about once a week; and 7.3% play two to three times a month;

+ When asked what kinds of games they play on a regular basis, 58.4% of the respondents said they regularly play virtual world/simulation games, followed by arcade games (40.3%), role playing games (33.5%), action games (29.7%), board games (26.9%), card games (25.6%) and word games (23.4%);

+ Of those who say they are "very likely" to buy points with a cash payment method, a majority of the users are men (53.4%) and a plurality in the 25-34 age range (42.8%); 85.4% of the users who say they are "very likely" to buy points with cash are also "very likely" to earn points through marketing actions.