Gaming has undergone quite a revolution in recent years, garnering new methods of social and mobile access, and perhaps more importantly, new methods of monetization. Free-to-play gaming has been particularly influential in the world of gaming, drumming up new means of incentivizing players and generating revenue for marketers and game publishers alike. And it turns out, free-to-play gaming does a great job at getting gamers to shell out, and on a rather regular basis.

Spil Games’ recent 2011 State of Gaming review revealed some interesting insight about free-to-play gamers. According to the report, those who play free-to-play games end up spending as much as $60 per month on micro-transaction to enhance their experience.

Spil Games parsed data that involved users’ paying and playing habit from January to December 2011. The company first introduced their social games in July 2011, and since then they’ve seen global average revenue per user grow by 30 percent each month. Currently, the company has a mammoth user base of 170 million monthly gamers, and saw 11 billion gameplays in 2011 – that’s 350 every second.

Breaking down the figures gender-wise, teen boys spend the highest average revenue per paying user on Spil Games’ platforms, generating $60 per month per user in Germany. Female players are particularly inclined to farm games, and Spil sees conversion rates of over 4 percent in some countries. By the end of 2011, four of the top five games for women were social or had a social element. Social games are especially popular with girls, with Pet Party being the most popular.

US most active in online gaming

Generally, players spend an average of 85 minutes per month playing online games. US and Brazil account for most of online gamers. Teens prefer racing games, particularly those in which they can show off their achievements to their friends. In 2011 more than 33,610,844 high scores were submitted by teens.

“The breadth of our offering and the personal approach available to developers is driving the kinds of numbers we’re seeing on our platforms,” said Spil Games’ CEO Peter Driessen. “Players clearly want to go to a platform specialized in online gaming, and this is a great opportunity for Triple-A developers. We expect they are positioned to make at least $5 million dollars per title on our platforms this year.”

Social gaming continues to grow

More big news in the social gaming scene, PC Game maker Crytek created a PC to mobile social gaming network called GFace. It’s currently in beta and focuses on cross-platform, multiplayer gameplay. There’s also a report that Zynga accounted for 12 percent of Facebook’s revenue in 2011. But along with it, the game developer was again accused of cloning its new game Zynga Bingo” from Buffalo Studio’s “Bingo Blitz.” Also, Zynga’s chief game designer Bryan Reynolds, along with Nexon America co-founder Min Kin, was appointed board of directors to the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences.

In addition, Final Fantasy XIII-2 Japanese version was patched to add Facebook support,which will allow players to post information about their game to their wall. Social gaming is so popular in Japan that Japan’s social gaming market will hit $5.1 billion dollar by 2016, Nomura Research Institute predicts.