If Playfish can sell for $275 million and Zynga can attract big funding on reports of bigger revenue, there’s clearly life in the virtual goods game.
So six Liverpool developers are hoping to emulate the success that pair has had in getting people to pay for things that don’t exist…
They are launching Little World Gifts, a startup iPhone app that lets users buy virtual Christmas gifts for each other (demo video).
Marrying virtual gifts with mobile certainly has potential – if you’re the sort of person that would rather receive pixels and not presents for Christmas, you’d probably rather do it whilst on the go. And Little World Gifts’ gifts are 3D, animated items that can be spun and examined on the screen.
The upstart may fall down on its dependency on the phone app but, as well as iPhone push notifications, recipients are also alerted to new gifts via Facebook.
The team seems to be using Christmas to test the idea but is aiming to make in-roads on what it says is a $1 billion market in 2010.
The service is being strategised by the awesomely-named Treasuremytext mobile backup cofounder Katie Lips but the app is not yet live on the store.
If Royal Mail strikes during the festive season, we may all be opening these kinds of Christmas gifts anyway….