Niche Network IMVU Takes on Social Gaming

When social games first took off on Facebook, most other big social networks took notice and shifted their business plans to include gaming. Months later, a second round of much smaller, but growing social startups is moving to add games, too. IMVU is the latest. With 10 million unique visitors per month, IMVU is a flyspeck in comparison to Facebook. But it's also significantly different. The network, which requires a downloadable client to use, has users interact through personalized avatars. It also has a significantly different business model from most social networks, earning most of its revenue from sales of virtual goods. Despite its status as a lightweight virtual world with game mechanics, IMVU hasn't always had distinct games for users to play. "We're answering one of the questions users have been asking us for some time," says CEO Cary Rosenzweig "I'm all dressed up, bringing friends in and interacting with them, but what else can I do?" Making games available isn't a simple addition to IMVU, according to Rosenzweig; it's a complete change in the company's business model and aims. The first partners to bring games to IMVU will be Omgpop, which has its own gaming destination site, and Heyzap and Viximo, which both take games created by other developers across the web. At the moment, there are 75 games on IMVU. Rosenzweig holds up the example of Top Modelz, a game recently added by Viximo, as one that will work well on IMVU. In the game, users trade images of themselves and other player's avatars, making and losing virtual currency. There hasn't been time for any single game concept to float to the top, but Rosenzweig hopes to see games that can incorporate IMVU's existing avatars for a more personalized experience -- which, he says, will also make the average player spend more. "People at IMVU are used to spending money, because they're very personally involved, the avatar is them," he told us. The last network we saw add games before IMVU was Myyearbook, which also has a deal with Omgpop. Rosenzweig thinks this type of niche social network will find success with games and continue growing. "Facebook grew so fast and got so huge that it's basically the internet for many of our users," he says "IMVU is their primary network, Facebook is secondary... having them go back and forth between these two media will be very common."

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Niche Network IMVU Takes on Social Gaming

Chris Morrison

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Chris Morrison