The goal is to go away from the concept of a “virtual world” to the idea of being a social entertainment platform. IMVU is starting with about 75 games from Viximo, Heyzap and OMGPOP. The idea is IMVU will be able to leverage its social network and virtual goods economy to offer many of the games that are now popular on casual game portals and social network sites like Facebook. To address this issue, in September 2010, IMVU announced that it was going to add a selection of games to its virtual world.
One of the big complaints facing many pure virtual worlds, is the lack of things to do beyond chatting with others. By April 2010, it was announced the virtual world had reached a $40 million annualized revenue run rate. In October 2009, it was announced that IMVU was doing a $25 million annual revenue run rate. Therefore it comes as somewhat of a surprise that IMVU is the exception to the rule. In early 2010, Makena Technologies closed down the long running virtual world. The most notable virtual world, Linden Labs Second Life, has been on the decline and is subject to a major class action lawsuit.
In the past two years, most of the news around the space has not been positive. Naturally, users outfitting their rooms will also go to visit the virtual item catalog.Īround 2007, 3D virtual worlds were seen as all the rage. As the emphasis is on voice and text chat, IMVU is designed around private rooms were avatars go to meet, not an expansive virtual world. What’s more, the source of those items are registered user/programmers. IMVU is free to play, but the those who decide to stick around usually avail themselves of the 4 million virtual items for sale in IMVU’s catalog. In many ways the concept reads like The Sims Online stripped of the simulation gameplay elements, in favor of a doubling down on user-generated content and player interaction. Since 2004 the service has been perfecting a 3D virtual environment where users deck out their avatars in the fashion style of their choice, and go out to chat with the people they meet.
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