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Viewing report
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Online Gaming: Where the Lost Boys Are
In-Stat/MDR, May 2004, Pages: 71
In the last year, Online Gaming (OLG) has received a lot of attention. In part, this is because it is a wonderfully ambiguous term that actually encompasses a myriad of topics. The two most recognized areas are Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) and Online Console Gaming (OCG), despite the fact that even when those two markets are combined, ten times as many people are playing the other forms of OLG, such as Counter Strike and WarCraft III. For OCG, the attention is warranted because dozens of millions of gamers will be paying an average of $25 a year to reach out and frag somebody by 2008. Unfortunately, MMORPGs, in their current form, are not expected to actually peak in US revenues until 2005, and will then decline slowly through 2008. This is because the nominal first year costs for many of these games are over $200. Considering how much time the average gamer spends with OLG, that translates to over $1/hr for MMORPGs, whereas the other forms of OLG cost a tenth of that.
However, when you consider the $50 billion involved in the TV advertising markets, this lends some hope to MMORPGs. It seems likely that as more people, especially men, get involved in OLG, then at least some of those ad revenues will likely come with them, and that will help grow the OLG market to nearly $4 billion by 2008. All aspects of OLG are covered in the report, including detailed forecasts of subscribers, revenues, and Petabits, plus strategic guidance
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