One of the stand out figures from comScore's presentation at Mobile Games Forum 2012 was the firm's suggestion that gifting in games – one user buying an in-app purchase to gift to another – hasn't taken off as many social studios initially thought it would.

Just 4.2 percent of players across the EU5 currently buy gifts for friends in-game according to comScore's Jeremy Copp – a figure that ultimately led to the main discussion point during sister event Social Games and Virtual Goods Forum's second panel of the day.

No gift

"Gifting hasn't really been done correctly yet," offered VP of developer relations at GREE International.

"The invites need to be relevant in the context of the game itself and appear at the right time. It's a matter of providing the right tools to the developers to properly incentivise that way."

Volker Hirsch – global head of business development for BlackBerry and former CSO at the now RIM acquired Scoreloop – added platform holders have made it very difficult for developments to implement gifting in the right way.

The Japanese way

"People will do gifting if they can use it effectively for marketing purposes or monetisation purposes, but it's been difficult – Apple didn't let you know if it was possible, and it was a dog [to implement] on Android," he said.

"Japanese social gaming platforms are built up like mini-worlds, and they're much more immersive," added Hirsch, suggesting such an environment makes gifting a more natural action for many players. 

"Those models tend to work better over there than they do here. Outside World of Warcraft or Club Penguin, I've never seen that done over here."

When it comes to the gifts themselves, however, SocialCubix CEO Udoka Mark Uzoka suggested developers might be offering the wrong type of items.

"Users feel more compelled to gift items that let users level up, rather than items that are more decorative."