Game Biz Squeezing Revenue From On-Demand Digital Subscriptions

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."

Comments

Error in article

[PalmerEldritch42]

I actually did RTFA and it has an error. It states that the address for Comcast subscribers (like me) to go to http://www.comcast.com/gamesondemand. That page doesn't exist. The correct address is:

http://www.comcast.net/gamesondemand/

Silly Statistics

[JavaLord]

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.