2012 is shaping up to be a great year for mobile social gaming, as a new report suggests that free-to-play mobile games my generate revenues of up to $500 million this year. We previously seen what a lucrative market virtual goods can be, and the total revenue of digital goodies is expected to reach $2.9 billion by the end of the year. When you consider a total pot of just under $3 million, the percentage of that mobile games alone are bringing in is staggering.

There’s a good chance that if you’re into the mobile and social games space then you’ve at least once visited Kongregate, the online gaming portal now owned by GameStop. The real question is, did you buy anything while you were there? If so, then congratulations on contributing to the site in a major way, as Kongregate is seeing a nice revenue stream coming from the realm of virtual goods.

It seems as though people have absolutely no problem buying things that don’t really exist, as a new report from PlaySpan is purporting that the sale of virtual goods reached approximately $2.3 billion in 2011. The numbers seem to indicate that one in four individuals spent money on virtual goods last year, with the average coming out to $64 a year per consumer. In an added bit of news that will shock no one, the bulk of these customers are male, with roughly half of guys ages 13-24 saying they bought virtual do-dads in the past year.