Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

The inevitable move toward niche virtual worlds is beginning, with the key points of differentiation being simplicity, subscription-free and less provacative behavior.

An interesting entry in the field is MapleStory which not only is simple and subsciption-free, but also is a two-dimensional world rather than a 3-D world.

The reasons for this is that it can reach a large audience that doesn't have ultra-fast broadband access. Another is that it offers tools that people can use with their avatars that make it simple and quick to make changes with. That's another way of saying that it's going past targeting only hard-core users to those who want easier, but similar experiences.

The images in the game are simple, but they also don't make a user have a sophisticated graphics care as well. MapleStory makes money by selling digital assessories and items for the avatars of the players. People spend some serious money on the items. In February of 2006, in North America alone users spent $1.6 million of various items in the virtual world.

At this time it seems the niche aspect of virtual worlds and online gaming is directed toward simplicity going beyond the hard-core user. This is the first stage of the process. Once people get comfortable in these worlds, then another stage will occur where companies will begin to offer much more targeted interests and worlds.

Right now the entire sector is being grown and made aware of as people increasingly embrace the concept. The press Second Life has received has been the leader in bringing all of this about.

Another part of this story is how the virtual and real worlds are interacting together. Nexon, the parent of MapleStory now offer cards you can buy at Target (TGT) that you can use to purchase virtual goods in their online world. Is all of this profitable? For Nexon, their worldwide sales are $230 million, with 85 percent of that being through the sales of digital items. And the market is just beginning to scale overall.