Brits spending 500m pounds a year on virtual goods

London, January 18 (ANI): Britons are apparently shelling out more than 500 million pounds a year to buy virtual goods on social networking and dating sites.

Shoppers are also said to be splashing money on web pictures and weapons for games priced up to 20 pounds each.

Virtual goods firm Zynga, whose FarmVille application on Facebook has 56 million users spending on animals and equipment that does not exist outside world wide web, reportedly made 91.4million pounds last year, reports the Sun.

Leading game provider also purportedly sold 123,000 pounds of snaps of pink Volkswagen Beetles in two days on MySpace.

Gaming expert Stuart Miles said: "People are happy to buy virtual gifts as they don't see them as being virtual anymore." (ANI)