| Broadband connectivity has enabled more and more consumers to engage in multiplayer gaming, which could lead to annual subscription revenues of more than $5 billion within the next five years. And even free-to-play games create significant opportunity for the generation of revenue through digital goods sales. The increasing richness, complexity, and bandwidth intensity of online gaming provides broadband service providers with an opportunity to attract a growing base of gaming enthusiasts to higher-speed (and higher-priced) Internet tiers, resulting in a boost to average revenue per unit. This report examines the U.S market opportunity that online gaming provides broadband service providers, and includes projections on users and annual gaming subscription revenues through 2014. Six tables and charts are included.
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- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Introduction
- Recent Developments in the Market
- The Subscriber Market
- Key Players
- Browser-based Online Games (Casual Games)
- Free-to-play Gaming and Digital Goods Sales
- Virtual Online Environments
- Advertising
- Virtual Worlds and Web 3.0 Applications
- Outlook and Conclusions
- Opportunities for Service Providers
- --Content Marketing
- --Social Marketing
- --Usage Caps, Metering, and Repackaged Solutions
- --Final Words
- Appendix
- Definitions
- TABLE OF FIGURES
- Figure 1: U.S. Broadband Households
- Figure 2: U.S. Online Gaming Paid Subscribers
- Figure 3: U.S. Online Gaming Subscriber Revenue
- Figure 4: U.S. Estimated Online Gaming Revenue and Subscribers by Connection Type
- Figure 5: Worldwide Online Gaming Market Share by Revenue
- Figure 6: Key Players and Estimated Worldwide Accounts/Players
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For Immediate Release
U.S. Online Game Subscribers to More Than Double in Five Years, Pike & Fischer Projects
Silver Spring, Md.—Americans who play online games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest generated $2.8 billion in subscription revenue in 2009, and stand to pay an annual $5 billion in game subscriptions by 2015, market research provider Pike & Fischer projects in a new report.
The number of online gaming paid subscribers, which totaled approximately 19.4 million at the end of last year, will more than double to 44.5 million by the end of 2014, P&F senior analyst Tim Deal forecasts. The increase in usage will result from the rise in digital distribution of online games as opposed to retail boxed sales, along with an increase in broadband adoption, Deal says.
“Established franchises such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest, and Dungeons and Dragons Online continue to create new game content in order to retain existing subscribers, while introducing new generations of gamers to their platforms,” Deal says. “The amount of online play is escalating rapidly.”
Although the number of online game subscribers will increase, average monthly online game subscription fees will drop from approximately $12 in 2009 to about $9.50 in 2014. This decrease will be fueled by increased competition, increased subscription volume, and better cost efficiencies—including an increase in digital distribution vs. retail packaged products, Deal says.
P&F says the increasing complexity of online gaming environments will heighten demand on broadband networks, giving Internet service providers an opportunity to boost revenues by adding higher-speed tiers for intense gamers.
The report, Broadband-enabled Gaming: A Budding Revenue Opportunity for Service Providers, is priced at $599 and is available for purchase at www.broadbandadvisoryservices.com. For analyst commentary or to request a briefing, contact Tim Deal at 603-652-8136 / tdeal@pf.com.
For information about Pike & Fischer’s Broadband Advisory Services, visit www.broadbandadvisoryservices.com or contact Jonathan Wentworth Ping at 973-718-4703 / jping@pf.com.
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Tim Deal
Tim Deal serves as our Senior Analyst, with a special focus on broadband-enabled consumer electronics devices and on emerging mass market applications such as online video sharing and VoIP-optimized e-commerce. Tim has developed SWOT analyses on such products as the iPhone, the Apple TV service, and rich-media applications on such social networking sites as MySpace. Tim has been providing detailed and actionable competitive intelligence analysis to leading technology firms for more than seven years. In that time he has authored more than one hundred comprehensive syndicated reports and an equal number of custom financial models covering the computing, consumer electronics, digital media, and storage industries. Prior to his career in competitive intelligence, Tim served as a counterintelligence/human intelligence and force protection analyst with the United States Army. Tim lives in the Seacoast area of New Hampshire. Contact Tim at tdeal@pf.com.
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