• VentureBeat, Wednesday, March 18, 2009 11:45 AM

VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi says Apple's new virtual goods platform for the iPhone "will likely produce a bonanza of revenues for game developers and publishers." The new platform should go live this summer once the new iPhone 3.0 software, which was also announced today, becomes available.

As Takahashi notes, more than 2,000 of the 6,000-plus games on the iPhone are ad-supported applications, but it's "pretty hard" for developers to generate significant revenue from advertising alone. However, virtual goods models allow consumers to try games for free, paying only for add-ons like new levels, character customizations, or some sort of special power.

As long as virtual goods are integrated well into the game, users have shown a willingness to make transactions. This model has worked particularly well in China and Korea, where concerns about game piracy led to the widespread deployment of virtual goods as a business model. Game companies have also made good use of it on social networks like Facebook. Now, they have the opportunity of doing so on the iPhone as well.

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