Social Gaming Network was one of the first gaming companies on Facebook’s platform — but it decided to make a big push on to the iPhone last year. It has been successful on that front, touting that its games are on 1 in every 3 iPhones and iPod Touches worldwide, including multiplayer jet-fighter game F.A.S.T., SGN Golf, iBowl and Agency Wars; and, it has hired some big names. But the iPhone has not been a good place for the primary way of making money through many games: Virtual goods.

Apple has only let developers introduce virtual goods for purchase within paid apps, but not free apps. Today, that changed, when the company announced to developers that they can now include virtual goods within free apps.

So we caught up with SGN chief executive Shervin Pishevar, to get his perspective.

ISG: What are the implications of virtual goods now being available within free gaming apps?

Shervin Pishevar: HUGE IMPLICATIONS! I was running around the office screaming and shouting with joy. We made a bet on the iPhone when a lot of people said it was too small. They said it didn’t have virtual goods, in-app purchases… we made a long-term bet, and it’s paying off. Being on 1 in 3 iPhones right now is a good place to be.

We’ve been investing in high-quality games, all built with virtual goods, and in-app purchases in them. We have 100 people developing incredible games, and we were already planning to get some out for the holidays — now we have a new business model to take advantage of all of this.

ISG: But there’s no option for offering your own virtual currency, like what many apps do on Facebook.

SP: Now, you’re going to purchase actual virtual goods. On the iPhone, it’s seamless. On Facebook, you have to enter your credit card number, and go through the whole process. One click on the iPhone is all it takes, because iTunes already has the information. The part that created friction before was that you could only do in-app purchase only after you paid for the app. That was the big obstacle in creating a virtual goods ecosystem. Now, the iPhone is continuing its march across world — unit numbers keep going up. The way I see it, the iPhone platform is where the Facebook platform was a year and a half ago. As Apple makes moves like it did today, you can see the evolution happening, mirroring some of the things that have created this monstrosity [the developer platform] on Facebook. Overnight, Apple’s creating a huge marketplace.

ISG: That’s bullish. So, any number estimates on how huge that marketplace is going to be?

SP: Already, the majority of sales on the iPhone are games. That’s the major activity, and I’d be surprised if the actual app purchases number doesn’t cross $1 billion in the next year. Now, having in-app purchases, that creates a totally different situation — who knows what the number is going to be. And it’s the moment that we’ve been waiting for, to essentially build a social gaming-sized company on the iPhone now, because we can do free-to-play games.

This makes the bridge between iPhone and Facebook make even more sense. Now, it’s the same model on both. A user on Facebook, playing a game for free, can get on a train and play the same free game on the iPhone — then buy a virtual good. Or vice versa.

ISG: Wait, so how does this fit in with your Facebook plans?

It expands it even more, it allows us to scale up iPhone games, so we can have a larger number of users transacting and interacting with users on Facebook. It’s great validation of our strategy.

ISG: Did you have any idea this was coming?

I had no idea. Apple is very careful, there’s no way anyone outside of the company knew. But a lot of people, including us, have been asking for this. There wasn’t a huge gap between June at WWDC [when developers pushed the issue]. Now, in mid-October, that change has happened. In June, I had thought if it happened in the next year, “oh that would be great.”

We were in the middle of making a large pipeline of quality games, based on our 3D multiplayer software. We were planning to push out “light” free version, then hopefully get people to buy the app. Now, we can take the paid versions with in-app purchases and use this as a free-to-play model.

ISG: What’s a good example? F.A.S.T.?

F.A.S.T. is a prime example of a game that we didn’t even have a free version for, only a paid game. It still did really well. Now that we have in-app purchases, that changes the model. Up until this point, there was no ability to download FAST for free. Now, it’s like the Zynga model and the Playfish model on Facebook. It’s proven that you can build a big business here if you can get to a mass audience. The iPhone is going to grow from where it is today. We can grow along with it, because we have a platform that can scale — with a business model that is frictionless.

To dig deeper into the virtual goods market, check out our new report: Inside Virtual Goods: The US Virtual Goods Market 2009 – 2010.