Online Games Boom - Who Benefits?

Next Generation has a piece looking, in some depth, at who exactly is benefiting from the boom in online gaming. From the article: "Electronic Arts provides a prime example of the struggles traditional publishers have faced when it comes to online games. Back around the turn of the century, the market visionaries at EA boldly declared that online games would be a prime driver of future growth and would account for as much as 20% of revenue in a mere three years (by 2003). EA even set-up a separate stock for its online game holdings. Since that time, Electronic Art's growth has been nothing short of spectacular. However, that growth has not been because of online games. This is despite the fact that EA is a leader in an emerging online game category, subscription-based casual games. "

Trick question?

[__aaclcg7560]

I would think that the companies providing the fat pipes are making a ton of money. Unless an online game hits it big, or has a very dedicated group of fans, there isn't any money to be made as every two-bit publisher is trying to ride this fad with their Evercrack clones.

Most growth in South Korea, China and Taiwan

[WillAffleckUW]

according to the article. It seems to me that we can expect this to continue to expand, and this will change the mix of popular games.

I've noticed that Konami, for example, does well with martial arts sector games, and that these are especially popular in those countries.

Re:Am I the Only One?

[bobdickgus]

Yes you are :P You could try guildwars if you only want to pay for the box. AO can be played for free also. Of course i am not adverse to good single player games, i know that i will be only playing Oblivion for a while when it comes out soon.

Re:Am I the Only One?

[pappy97]

"Am I the only one that doesn't like to HAVE to connect to the net to play a game?"

Probably. I grew up in the NES/SNES generation and while back then I bought games that I would play alone and/or with friends, today I only buy games that have multiplayer, like (XBOX 360) NHL 2k6, COD 2, Perfect Dark Zero, and I am going to pick up Fight Night Round 3 this week.

What I hated as a kid (And my parents really hated it) was that I wanted a game so badly, and when I finally got it, I was pretty much bored with it after a few hours. The games in which this did not happen were multiplayer- oriented games, like Goldeneye for N64.

It's used to be a rare thing to get anyone over to play a multiplayer game, but when you did, oh man was it fun. Today the consoles and PC's allow this for hundreds of games, and you almost always can find someone to play with so you don't get bored by the CPU. This is a good thing.

P.S. I am not a fan of the MMO thing, but as long as RPG's are around, MMO's will continue to thrive.

Re:Am I the Only One?

[PyroPunk]

No, you're not the only one. Now, I don't play video games on my computer, but I do own a PS2 and an XBox, and I will never connect either one of those machines to the internet. This is the main reason I don't buy an XBox 360, if I understand everything correctly I would have to connect it to their XBox Live System so I could download emulators to allow me to play my existing games on it. And of course to connect to the XBox live system you have to create some account, and I'm sure once all that's set up it will always want me to connect so it can make sure no updates are out there or anything; and I just don't want to go through the hassel. (Please correct me if I'm wrong). Also, I just have no interest at all in ever playing a game with someone that's not in the same room with me; and I never will. I just hope the day doesn't come where you have no choice but to connect your console to some remote server to play a game.