Men Buying 90% of Virtual Goods in Mobile Apps, Says Study

According to a new study from MocoSpace, the market for virtual goods is heavily male-dominated. After anonymously analyzing the user behavior of 1,500 mobile social gamers on its platform, the company found that, while it saw similar traffic levels from both men and women, it saw far more sales of virtual goods going by men. In fact, nearly 90% of all virtual goods bought in-game were purchased by men.

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53% of the MocoSpace mobile gamers were male and 47% were female, but 69% of the men purchased virtual goods, as opposed to just 31% of women. Interestingly enough, this figure wasn’t due to the time spent playing games, the company found. Although men play slightly more (an average of 21 minutes per day) than women (an average of 19 minutes per day), this didn’t answer the question as to why the men were more likely to pay for these in-game upgrades and other virtual goods purchases.

According to MocoSpace CEO Justin Siegel, both genders display high levels of engagement, which is good for advertisers, “but men and male-dominated titles tend to drive bigger revenues for mobile social game developers.” He did not comment on why there was a such a notable difference.

For those unaware, MocoSpace is one of the largest entertainment destinations on the Web and mobile Web, with 17 million registered users, and 300,000 active monthly users. Some of its popular titles include Street Wars, Stage Hero, Happy Farm, Blackjack Party, Roulette Party and The Lost World.

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