IMVU expands into seven new languages

Newly turned social game company expands to draw in European players

Social games are a hot commodity right now. As major players like DeNA and Zynga threaten to align and social gaming companies like Mig33 and Rocket Ninja raise serious funds for their social games, companies have to be able to reach larger audiences and tap into a portion of the average eight hours a week that gamers spend playing.

Palo Alto-based IMVU, a social game developer, announced Friday it would be expanding into Europe. The expansion will alllow the game to be played in seven new languages, including Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish. The Swedish version will come out first, and the rest will roll out in the following weeks. That is good news for the 11 million players IMVU already has in Europe, which represent a significant portion of the 50 million total registered users.

Launched in 2004, IMVU's games allowed users to create 3D avatars, which can be used in-game. The company only recently transitioned, in September, from a virtual world style of game, a la Second Life, to a social game, where instead of interacting with fake digital people, players can spend time playing games with their friends in a virtual world.

The company makes money though the sales of in-game items, which help users to advance in the game. At first, sales of virtual goods may sound a bit hokey, but they have increased by 80% in the last year. Virtual goods sales represented approximately $600 million of sales in 2008 and $1 billion in sales in 2009, according to Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Morgan Securities video game analyst. 85% of the companies revenue comes directly from item sales.

IMVU raised $10 million in its D-series of funding, in January of 2009, with the money coming from by Best Buy Capital, Menlo Ventures, Allegis Capital, and Bridgescale Partners.