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Learn all about the MMO market with this nifty infographic
Knowing is half the battle, folks. Sometimes the process of going from not knowing to knowing can be boring and slow -- but not this time, thanks to the magic of infographics! The intelligent folks over at Newzoo have compiled a relatively brief infographic about the state of the MMO market, from the fact that there are 400,000,000 MMO players world-wide (of whom about 180,000,000 are strictly free-to-play patrons) to the fact that 30% of Australia's paying players are female. Last year, the market was split nearly 50/50 between free-to-play and pay-to-play games, but has since switched to a 53% to 47% advantage for free-to-play. Check out the full infographic after the break to feast your eyes and your brain, or head over to an interview with Newzoo's CEO to absorb knowledge the old-fashioned way.
Report: Global MMO spending to top $12 billion in 2012
Number-crunching services SuperData Research and Newzoo released reports today forecasting strong growth in the MMO industry. According to the analysts, worldwide spending on MMOs will top $12 billion this year, and that's not all: The companies also predict that this number will increase to a whopping $17.5 billion in 2015. Other facts released in the reports: Yearly MMO market growth increased by 14% in the U.S. and 24% in Germany. The number of MMOs in the field has doubled since the start of 2011. Twenty-three of the 50 million U.S. MMO gamers spend money on subscriptions or microtransactions, a 3% increase from 2011. The yearly average amount spent is $127. More German players spend money on MMOs than in the U.S. -- 13% more, to be exact. Free-to-play revenues in the U.S. now account for 50% of the market, up from 39% in 2010. Science-fiction MMOs make up to three times as much money as their fantasy counterparts. SuperData CEO Joost van Dreunen says that the race for gamers' wallets is only getting started: "The current market saturation forces MMO publishers to compete over a finite gamer population." [Source: SuperData Research/Newzoo press release]
Newzoo releases 2011 MMO Games Market Report
Newzoo, a research and consultation firm for the gaming industry, has released its 2011 MMO Games Market Report, and it includes some interesting -- albeit not terribly surprising -- statistics on the state of the MMO genre. The study found that only about 36% of 39 million players in "European and emerging markets" played games with a "sci-fi or space theme." This is especially relevant considering the next big player in the MMO market -- Star Wars: The Old Republic, for any rock-dwellers -- falls into this category. Peter Warman, Newzoo's CEO, remarked on the matter: You will not catch me making any predictions about Star Wars: The Old Republic. But I am very curious to see how much F2P SciFi gamers EA will be able to convert to P2P gamers and what part will come from outside the current pool of SciFi gamers, being complete newcomers as well as the subscribers to EVE Online, WoW, RIFT or any other triple A P2P MMO game. With big F2P SciFi titles also scheduled to launch pretty soon I expect to see significant differences in uptake of the various SciFi titles in US, Europe and Emerging markets. How will his prediction play out? We'll be finding out soon enough.
Free-to-play spending poised to become the majority in the US
Free-to-play is on the rise -- we all knew that, but perhaps we didn't quite grasp how much it's gone up. Gamasutra reports that online players have boosted their F2P spending a whopping 24% this year over last, with F2P revenues cornering 47% -- versus 39% in 2010 -- of the MMO market in the US. Analysts predict that we're on track to see $1.2 billion spent on free-to-play MMOs in 2011. This surge of F2P spending isn't just confined to North America, however. Europe, Asia, and other emerging countries already see a majority of MMO spending dedicated to F2P versus other business models. The report states that US players spend 26 million hours daily in MMOs. Your average US player is 84% likely to be enjoying browser-based titles and 50% likely to be invested in a client-based game. NewZoo CEO Peter Warman thinks 2012 will be a decisive year for F2P in more ways than one: "Recent lay-offs and the sudden death of LEGO Universe are serious warnings for the MMO games industry. Success will also strongly depend on how MMO companies extend their unique gameplay and IP across other game platforms, specifically mobile."
Russian MMO market to continue growing through next year
For a long time, China has been the country to look to for MMO growth. The country's rapid acquisition of technology and popular internet cafes has led to an explosion in growth and online gaming. But China isn't the only country steadily rising in quantities. According to a study by Newzoo, the Russian game market is already a $1.5 billion industry, with $270 million of that going directly toward MMOs, making our favorite genre tied with general PC gaming for overall spending. Among the more interesting upshots of the study are the fact that women compose 49% of the overall gamer market in Russia, a remarkably even split considering the setup of most developed nation; 69% of the spent money goes toward online or mobile games. In many ways, the Russian gaming market has already overtaken the European markets in terms of overall numbers and spending, according to Newzoo CEO Peter Warman. The company also created a useful set of infographics regarding the overall breakdown of data. [Source: Newzoo press release]
Consumer spending on video games reached $25 billion this year
Market research firm Newzoo recently published a report on the U.S. video game industry's sales performance during the current, nearly-finished calendar year, providing evidence for some trends you've probably already noticed. During the past 12 months, overall consumer spending on game software fell two percent year-over-year to $24.7 million, while console and boxed PC/Mac software lost 29 percent and 19 percent of their market shares, respectively. While these two former sales juggernauts waned, every other form of gaming software, including MMOs, downloadable PC/Mac games, mobile apps, casual games and social networking titles all saw sizable sales boosts over their 2009 totals. Check out the chart after the jump to see how these categories shook out. [Image credit: Flickr user AMagill]
Study: Americans spent $25.3 billion on games in 2009
US consumers of those newfangled video games apparently spent $25.3 billion on them in 2009, according to the Today's Gamers Survey by Newzoo and TNS. If this study seems vaguely familiar, it's likely because there was a similar report released on massively multiplayer games a couple months ago, which found that Americans spent $3.8 billion on MMOs during 2009. Typically, data we see comes from retailers, but this survey was conducted using 13,000 respondents, aged 8 and up, who were "carefully selected to represent each individual country's demographic profile." As VentureBeat notes, the numbers in the Newzoo report are quite different than NPD's report on 2009 sales -- by about $5 billion. Unlike NPD, the Newzoo study also reports data on several European nations. A free summary [PDF link] of the report is available on GamesIndustry.com, while the full report will cost you €299 ($384). We wonder how much US consumers spent on research reports in 2009 ... [Via VentureBeat]
