While the PC gaming industry is losing revenue in terms of titles sold in brick and mortar retail stores, it has been gaining in downloadable game sales. It also has been generating revenue in another way via the purchase of in-game items from free-to-play online titles. Now a new study claims that the purchasing of virtual goods in games will expand rapidly in the US.

The study comes from DFC Intelligence which worked with MMO in-game item seller Live Gamer to survey nearly 5,000 games in the US and Europe earlier this year. The survey revealed that 88 percent of the respondents said they had purchase some kind of digital download item and that 60 percent said they have bought an in-game item that was not a full game. DFC believes that free-to-play online games with in-game items as their revenue model generated $800 million in 2009 in the US and Europe. DFC predicts that number will grow to $3 billion by 2015.