Online Games to Quadruple by 2011 37
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.'"
Half of this will come from: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Half of this will come from: (Score:2)
Re:Half of this will come from: (Score:2)
Re:Half of this will come from: (Score:2)
more news (Score:1, Funny)
Re:more news (Score:1)
WOW! (Score:1)
Re:WOW! (Score:1)
In other words...Quad Damage!
(sorry)
Re:WOW! (Score:2)
Unfortunately, Quad Damage was reduced in Quake III Arena to 3x.
Re:WOW! (Score:1)
Re:WOW! (Score:2)
You should be happier than fuck!
Game Bloat (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem with fragmenting is a symptom. A symptom of a bloated market, flowing with a variety of games but little true innovation. When you can't differentiate your product through innovative gameplay, your going to struggle. The bright side of this, for us gamers, is that is bloat
Re:Game Bloat (Score:2)
Re:Game Bloat (Score:3, Interesting)
Difference between MMO's and Casual Games (Score:2, Insightful)
Skills are raised but training in that spacific skill. The skill will complete in a set ammount of time. Certin attributes affect it but
Not really (Score:2)
The whole "level advancement" thing can't be fixed by a one size fits all solution. Different players just want different things out of game. As Second Life seems to prove you don't even have to have levels, therefore no level grin
SL (Score:2)
SL appears to me to be the second-coming of those old text-based MUDs where all the content was put together by users. Now, I wouldn't really consider those "games" so much as "social environments." I mean, games are supposed to have a set of goals to reach through some given framework. As I understand, SL is pretty much an open-ended creation environment.
Re:Difference between MMO's and Casual Games (Score:1)
Or there's Passive Gaming [suttree.com], where Casual Games could really excel. I don't know of anyone who's created a true hybrid MMO, MCO, Passive Game but I'm pretty sur
Great (Score:1)
I wish someone would make a better Subspace (Score:2)
Re:I wish someone would make a better Subspace (Score:4, Funny)
You could always try Progress Quest [progressquest.com]. 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...
Re:I wish someone would make a better Subspace (Score:1)
They did (Score:2)
mmmm...nah (Score:1)
it might bubble up occasionally, but people will see that its the same idea dolled up and inside a different box and it will sink back down. with the advent of wow, i couldn't imagine the mmo market doing much better than doubling, at best.
Finite amount of money... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Finite amount of money... (Score:1)
One of the answers to this problem of a finite number of subscribers is to REMOVE subscription cost. I don't know why there has only been one company that I'm aware of that has created an MMO that requires only the cost of buying the game. That is Guild Wars. On the other hand, I do know why they won't remove the fee, greed. Theres a lot of money to be made in MMO subcription based gaming.
Personally I think the only reason why Guild Wars is fee free is because the company Are
Gross Assumption (Score:2, Funny)
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 l
The real reason is freedom (Score:4, Interesting)
Freedom of expression isn't just a nice ideological point, it's profitable.
Re:The real reason is freedom (Score:1)
Not what I see... (Score:1)
It could be 10x larger... (Score:2)
Within a couple of years,