Arguably the biggest entertainment opening this fall has not been a Hollywood blockbuster, but a video game. After just three days on the market, Grand Theft Auto V grossed $1 billion in sales worldwide (that’s billion, with a “b”). With sales numbers like that, the big financial institutions can’t afford to ignore the gaming community… especially the large sub-set of Millennial gamers.
These days, even city dwellers can harvest crops, breed animals in a cow pasture and decorate a lighthouse all in a day’s work—from their cubicles. It’s all thanks to Zynga— the San Francisco-based social network game developer whose resume includes FarmVille, CityVille, FrontierVille, Words With Friends and Mafia Wars, among others. You may know them as the root of all those status updates from your Facebook friends who boast their bovine purchases at every turn, or perhaps you’re a digital denizen yourself? Whatever the fascination of thriving in a virtual world, it amounts to success. Available on multiple platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, the iPad, smart phones and Yahoo, Zynga’s games reel in more than 230 million monthly active users. That’s a lot of faux fruit! But lately Zynga and its following aren’t the only ones cashing in on the crop of games. Make way for the era of social gaming as a hot marketing platform.