Using Nielsen's report on Club Penguin's possible stalled growth as a jump-off point, Areae co-founder and noted industry figure Raph Koster pointed out the prevalence of virtual worlds by sharing a photo of a rack of game cards currently displayed at Target.

In addition to cards for large MMOs, such as Club Penguin and WoW, the retail chain also carries game cards for gPotato titles, Gaia Online, and a wide variety of other virtual worlds, especially Korean games. With the market becoming saturated with kids worlds, Koster questioned how many of them can actually survive.

He then answered, “Just about all of them. If online continues to chew through the gaming market, this rack could be the size of a GameStop someday — one stack of cards per game, in a world where all the games try to drive alternate revenue streams regardless of platform."