tech|ticker on Virtual Worlds Investment: VCs Are Hot, But It's Hard to Predict for Success

In an interview on Yahoo's tech|ticker, host Sarah Lacy takes a look at our round-up of Q1 investment in the virtual worlds space ($184M) and, it seems, our numbers on the growth of youth-oriented worlds. She sums it up pretty well:  "The first quarter was crazy." All in all, it makes for a nice fit in a segment on "VCs Top Bets in 2008."

Lacy calls it a "speculative category," but goes on to ask  Sharon Weinbar, Managing Director for Scale Venture Partners, why so much money is flowing into the virtual worlds industry.

"Everyone is chasing the next Club Penguin," Weinbar said. "People are also chasing the next Facebook, Bebo, Myspace, so a lot of what's happening in 'virtual worlds' is people think of that as the new environment to socialize so everyone's chasing that, but it's kind of like the social networks. There's only a handful, but there are hundreds that are trying. It's the same thing in the casual MMO space. [...] VCs have the hots to get one of the ones that matters, but it's really inexplicable which ones have traction and which ones don't."

One interesting thing to note is that Weinbar lumps virtual worlds, at least for this discussion, in with casual games, casual MMOs, and social networks. It seems like worlds like Gaia Online (especially with its upcoming casual MMO), ourWorld (self-described as a casual MMO with many casual games built in),   and Vivaty (with a preliminary tie-in to Facebook) are all hitting the sweet spot. And the investors agree.

Of course, that's hardly an exhaustive list, and plenty of others are aiming at the same direction. How can they start showing off to VCs that they'll get traction where others won't?

[via tech|ticker. The discussion of virtual worlds starts at around 4 minutes in.]