Another strong vote for Virtual Goods
April 7th, 2009
This time the votes are being cast by investors. The recipient? Beijing-based Changyou.com, the game developer behind the wildly popular MMORPG Tian Long Ba Bu (”Novel of Eight Demigods”). Changyou’s (CYOU) stock price jumped 25% on it’s opening day of trading on the NASDAQ, confirming investors optimism for the company’s future prospects. In 2008, it generated over $200 million in revenue, most of which is derived from the sale of virtual goods. Still, they have a ways to go to catch up with virtual goods behemoth Tencent. These guys rang up $1 billion in revenue last year, about 70% of which is derived from the sale of virtual goods. Here’s to the rest of the world waking up to such an enormous opportunity!