Gaming world will expand, virtually
Sony, MySpace may benefit from more players
By Danny King -- Video Business, 4/9/2008
APRIL 9 | Talk about addictions.
More than a third of the Internet users who will sample virtual gaming within the next year will become weekly participants, feeding the growth of such titles as Linden Lab’s Second Life and Neopets.
As many as 3 million of the approximately 8 million Internet users who will try a virtual game within the next 12 months will become weekly active players, said Michael Cai, director of broadband and gaming at Parks Associates, in a presentation at a virtual games conference in New York last week.
Such growth would boost an industry that remains nascent among Internet users. About 15% of Internet users visit a virtual world at least once a month, compared to the 65% of users who regularly watch videos online and the 48% regularly visiting social-networking sites, according to Parks Associates. By 2011, about 80% of active Internet users will be regular virtual world participants, research firm Gartner said last year.
The increase in virtual world players would justify planned entrees into virtual gaming by companies ranging from Sony to social-networking sites such as News Corp.’s MySpace.
“Frequent usage of virtual worlds lags behind other online activities,” Cai said in the presentation. Such a gap may be narrowed as social-networking sites add virtual gaming features, while Sony Computer Entertainment, which last year delayed its “Home” virtual world for the PlayStation 3 console, releases the gaming platform in 2008, Cai said.
Neopets, Ganz-owned Webkinz and Walt Disney’s Toontown are among the most populated virtual worlds because of their popularity with children, while Second Life dwarfs the virtual-world competition among adults, according to Parks Associates.
An increase in virtual-world players would mirror the surge in the overall gaming industry. Last year, U.S. consumers spent $9.5 billion on videogames, up 28% from 2008, according to NPD Group. That jump is more pronounced among teens, who boosted videogame spending by 41% last year, while cutting back in other areas such as compact discs, according to NPD.
Meanwhile, worldwide online-gaming subscribers have tripled to about 16 million in the past three years, according to Web site Mmogchart.com, while social-networking sites are jumping into free online gaming in order to secure visitors. Estimates of worldwide revenue from online gaming subscriptions vary widely, though last year, the BBC, citing Screen Digest, estimated the market at $1 billion and projected it to grow to $1.5 billion by 2011.
The worldwide gaming audience rose 17% to about 217 million, or almost a third of the world’s Internet users, as of last May, according to ComScore Networks. Yahoo! Games attracted the most participants, with a gaming audience of about 53 million, ComScore said.
