Social gaming company Zynga
just raised $180 million in funding, while rival Playfish was
acquired by Electronic Arts for $300 million -- but third-placer Playdom is not to be outdone.
Playdom will report revenues of more than $50 million this year, CEO John Pleasants said in a recent interview with investment research firm ThinkEquity,
as reported by Silicon Alley Insider.
75 percent of that money comes from virtual goods, says Pleasants -- who
left his chief operating officer role at EA earlier this year to head up Playdom.
15 percent of the revenues come from third-party advertisers who do "offers" marketing with users -- the advertisers buy virtual items with which to reward users for activities like filling out marketing surveys. Advertising accounts for the remaining percentage.
According to the report, Playdom has 28 million monthly active users. In comparison, Playfish has claimed 50 million, while Zynga recently touted its 200 million monthly actives. The measure of "monthly active users" counts users more than once across multiple games; Zynga says it has 100 million monthly uniques.
Playdom, which last month
raised $43 million in a funding round, plans to double the number of games it offers in the coming year; currently, 60 percent of its users are on MySpace, while 40 percent access its titles via the hotter Facebook network.
