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Game Biz Squeezing Revenue From On-Demand Digital Subscriptions

Posted by simoniker on from the money-for-something dept.

Thanks to Yahoo/The Hollywood Reporter for its article discussing the digital distribution of older mainstream video games, in a continuation of a previously discussed story about digital 'gaming on demand' subscription services. Yoav Tzruya of content aggregator Exent points out some major ISP advantages: "Users who subscribe to games on demand services are 75% less likely to switch to other broadband providers", and claims (though the article also mentions "on Yahoo, the Top 10 games on demand titles are invariably popular 'hardcore' games") that: "We approach a different set of gamers who don't go into the stores that sell games. More than 50% of the games on demand customers are women, and we have quite a few who are 25-plus years old. We are approaching different decision makers and different budgets."

2 of 11 comments (clear)

  1. this really isn't that bad of a deal by fireduck · · Score: 3, Insightful

    looking through the games they have available at yahoo or atariondemand.com, there's definitely a few I wouldn't mind playing. and the price is right. $15 a month is cheaper than the cable bill, a movie for 2, the cell phone bill. plus it's far cheaper than a new game, and a bit cheaper than any of the "hot" used games available and on par or maybe 2x the price of a bargain bin game. so for the price of 2 bargain bin games, you get access to 70+ games per month. that ain't bad. sure you don't own them, but if you were really interested in the game, you probably would have bought it when it was released...

  2. Silly Statistics by JavaLord · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I think we've proven to the publishers that games on demand (don't) cannibalize anything," says Exent's Tzruya. "We approach a different set of gamers who don't go into the stores that sell games. More than 50% of the games on demand customers are women, and we have quite a few who are 25-plus years old. We are approaching different decision makers and different budgets.

    Oh no, here come the bunk statistics about women and video games again. Just because 50% of your on demand downloads come from women, doesn't mean that women don't want to "Go into stores that sell games". Gamestop isn't a porn store or anything. The more logical conclusion I can draw from more women buying games on demand is that the genre of the games available to download are more to their liking. I think an over 25 women is more likely to play snood or a tetris variation for $10 than to go to a video game store and drop $40 on farcry.