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Online Games to Quadruple by 2011
ches_grin writes "A new report from DFC Intelligence predicts that the online game market will quadruple over the next five years, growing from $3.4 billion to more than $13 billion. Although previous studies have pointed to Asia as the leader in online gaming, this report suggests that North America may take the lead. MMO are expected to be the genre that drives growth, although casual games are also predicted to grow. Despite the predicted growth, the gaming market is not entirely rosy: 'On the downside, even with market growth many companies are likely to struggle to become profitable. A big problem is that the market is becoming more fragmented among different companies, types of products and markets.'"
World of Starcraft.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
I love how they seperate MMO's From Non-MMO's. They used the Term "MMO's and Casual Games" This would lead you to believe that all MMO's are not casual but rather lives that people live. There needs to be more Casual MMO's such as EVE Online, which doesnt credit you on Playing for 6 hours in one day. Rather is credits you on how long you have had your account online or off.
Skills are raised but training in that spacific skill. The skill will complete in a set ammount of time. Certin attributes affect it but only with minor numbers. You can then log off and still have the skill training. This is great for the casual gamer and is why EVE is ranked one of the top played MMO's.
Other MMO's need to learn from this and start creating more casual style MMO's
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
I'm getting tired of RPGs and FPSs.
You could always try Progress Quest. It really does take all the boring parts out of an RPG. It leaves you with... nothing?
Heading to the killing fields...
Slaying an adolescent Half-Dwarf... Got Half-Dwarf beard
Slaying a porn elemental... Got porn elemental lube
Heading back into town to sell your stuff...
Buying upgrades...
Heading to the killing fields...
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
Has it ever occurred to these researchers and analysts that there is only so much money people are willing to put on games and entertainment. All gaming areas seem to get similar market growths, which makes the overall spending on games to increase too much to be realistic. I think they might be right about quadrubling the consumption but I doubt that market will be that much. These numbers mean that 100 million people need to subscribe to 10/month service. Compare that to WOW, which has "only" 6 million subscribers.
Besides my own experiences with WOW makes me think twice before subscribing and getting involved with an online game. I'm sure there are others who are not willing to spend 100+ a year for one single game.
I would agree that diversity is good, but then I look out there... and all I see is a sea of clones and crap. As I said it is temporary, however, eventually the good will beat out the garbage and the bloat will subside. When that happens, it will be because a few companies really innovated. This is not some final state; the market will bloat out again, copying the successful games and starting the cycle all over again. I guess we're just looking at the same cycle in two different ways.
Demented But Determined.
This assumes that people will still be interested in online gaming 5 years from now.
5 years ago:
I bet Hollywood would have thought box office receipts would have trippled by now
I bet the RIAA would have thought the fad of online music would be over by now
I bet Hummer drivers would have thought it would be cheap to drive a big ass cars now
I bet nobody figured George Bush would still be in office today.
I bet the makers of Duke Nukem Forever would have thought they would have released a game by now
The bottom line is, never get your hopes up.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
The real reason online games are growing is freedom: No restrictions based on the size of the company. No ESRB. No Wal-Mart decency standards. No industry self-censorship. No distributors and publishers colluding with the bluenoses. No laws banning violence or sexual content. And, if such laws were to appear, the games would move to jurisdictions where they could not be shut down.
Freedom of expression isn't just a nice ideological point, it's profitable.
I wrote parts of this stuff