Universal Getting Into Virtual Goods Market

Need a T-shirt for your avatar? Or a movie poster for your avatar’s bedroom? Help is on the way.

Universal Pictures has signed a deal with Virtual Greats to create virtual goods for two of its films, Brian DePalma’s Scarface with Al Pacino and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The first batch of virtual goods will be found on Meez.com, a social entertainment destination for teens and young adults, according to a press release.

Virtual goods, by the way, are things bought in virtual communities or virtual games that cannot leave that environment. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the most expensive virtual good ever sold was in the virtual Entropia Universe, where a space station called the Crystal Palace went for $330,000. Hey, the place came with four biodomes stuffed with aliens to hunt down along with a lovely bar to quaff virtual lagers.

Prices like that help explain the results that research firm In-Stat came up with last year when it predicted that $7.3 billion would be spent in virtual goods in 2010. So Universal wants a piece of that action and its first items will appear on Meez later this month. And more Universal virtual goods are surely to follow at Meez and on other sites.

Virtual Greats is chalking up ever more licensing deals for the virtual goods space, with clients ranging across artists, IP and brands, including Snoop Dogg, Paris Hilton, Domo, Garfield, Warner Bros. Television, Universal Pictures, the NBA, Skechers, and Rocawear.

Interestingly, men are more often the ones laying out the real cash for virtual item in mobile social games, according to a recent study by MocoSpace. They outspend women by 9 to 1, the study shows.

MocoSpace watched the buying behavior of 1,500 of its users and found that 53% of MocaSpace mobile social gamers are male and 47% are female, but 69% of the males buy virtual goods and only 31% of females do. Those men “are responsible for 90 percent of virtual goods that are purchased inside the games,” the study shows.

Now you know what to get for your male friends next time a birthday comes.

(Image at top — Scarface: The World is Yours for Nintendo Wii)