Virgin Gaming’s revolutionary mix of online gaming and video games has seen a million players looking to take the plunge. The figures, reported exclusively by VentureBeat, show players are coming round to the idea that could eventually become a huge part of the online gaming industry. In addition to the million registered users, the service has awarded $7million in cash prizes for games that are amongst some of the most popular in the entire video gaming industry.
“We knew we were on to something and that our service had significant potential, we just didn’t realize it would take off as quickly as it did,” said Rob Segal, chief executive of Virgin Gaming. “Our team continues to evolve the experience on a daily basis, and user feedback has been a key component in our upgrades.”
Having Take-Two’s 2K Sports stable as well as EA Sports guarantees success as players won’t think anything of wagering a few pounds or dollars on the chance of beating their opponent. As many of the games are guy orientated, the cocky male bravado shines through when there’s a chance to not only beat the other person but win money doing it.
Players using the site, which launched in June 2010, spend an average of 72 minutes per visit and in total a whopping four million game challenges have been issued. Virgin’s acid test comes with the bigger tournaments they’ve recently been setting up and whether they can challenge the long-held dominance of Major League Gaming.
The first step towards this is the firm’s Challenge Series that sees $1million up for grabs – the largest prize ever for a video gaming competition. Players across Madden NFL 12, NHL 12 and FIFA 12 have the chance to part of the prize fund and it ends in New York in May.
Virgin has the brand to do this but it will have to sign up a lot more than the current one million to give it a good shot. Beyond that…they’re looking at the mobile and social platforms of course. Gotta stick with the times after all!
