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Market Study
Published: September 2006
Pages: 40
Tables: For full details, please email keithw@cmsinfo.com
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Research from: iDate
Sector: Broadband & Fixed

These past two years have marked a radical departure in the dissemination and content of massively multiplayer games

Unprecedented success of World of Warcraft (WoW), from Vivendi Universal Games subsidiary, Blizzard Entertainment. Boasting close to 7 million subscribers (each paying roughly 12 USD a month), WoW has become the most widely-played online game in the world – outperforming South Korean rivals – and one of the highest earners. Does this overwhelming popularity herald MMG’s transition to the mass market?

- Ongoing innovation, with cases in point that include Dofus from French studio, Ankama, enjoying rave reviews from gamers and industry members alike.

- Growing popularity of web-based massively multiplayer games, both hosted and not, including Habbo Hotel, Kochon Land, Ogame and Battle Arena – aimed at players without (or no longer) the time to devote themselves fully to complex gaming universes, but who still crave interactive entertainment.

- Development of a virtual economy inside the games: Second Life (Linden Lab), Entropia Universe (MindArk), World of Warcraft and most of the major titles all offer features enabling trade within the game itself.

These new trends taking shape in the very specific world of MMG have also become the source of broader explorations in a variety of other areas, where the notion of persistent universe is becoming a central part of development and innovation (mobile services, desktop software, online applications?).
Massively multiplayer games in brief

- Features of the massively multiplayer online role playing game offer and business models.
- Massively multiplayer games (MMG) and the mass market: from hardcore to occasional gamers.
- MMG as laboratories for future applications: the community phenomenon, growing ubiquity of persistent universes?
- New gaming trends and growth outlook, going beyond video games and reaching a broader array of devices.
Key questions

- Is a global mass market possible? Under what conditions, and on which devices?
- What will be the business models of the future?
- What role do gamer communities play?
- Online game distribution modes: going all digital?
- What breakdown between production, operation, publishing and distribution?
- Is the public ready for persistent universes?
Who should read this report?

Game producers, publishers and distributors
- Assessing the development of MMG
- Resituating existing services’ growth prospects and competition zone
- Understanding the value chain and business models’ organisation

Internet companies
- Understanding video game specialists' positioning and strategy
- Assessing the implications of MMG's increasing popularity

Operators (telcos, media...)
- Understanding video game companies' overall strategy
- Anticipating repercussions of consumers' increasing usage
- Analysing partnership possibilities with video game companies

Manufacturers (consumer devices)
- Understanding the way use of new platforms and devices is evolving
- Keeping track of major developments in the MMG market

Investors and analysts
- Analysing the overall state of competition, and for MMG in particular
- Evaluating the market's scope and future prospect

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Table of Contents

1 - Current state of affairs
1.1 Definition of massively multiplayer online games
- Games: interaction, 2D/3D animation, personalisation, scenario, characters’ progress
- Massively multiplayer: 5,000 gamers connected simultaneously
- Persistent or online and potentially persistent over various devices
- The community aspect
- The success of WoW

1.2 Features of the offer
- An offering dominated by role playing games for hardcore gamers
- The offer’s expansion, including fully web-based MMG, available for free and aimed at occasional gamers
- The popularity of occasional games
- The shape of things to come: increasing demand thanks to the growing Internet population

1.3 Community at the heart of the matter
- A central component to gaming, and a unique media phenomenon
- Characteristics (codes, genres?), communication modes
- The communities’ contributions to the game.

2 - The players

2.1 The top MMG
- The pioneers: Asheron's Call, EverQuest, Lineage, Ultima Online
- Community-centric: Dark Age of Camelot
- The World of Warcraft phenomenon
- The new generation: ToonTown, Dofus, Second Life
- Subscribers: numbers, breakdown by game, by genre, by geographical zone

2.2 The business models
- Subscribers: number, breakdown by game, genre, geographical area
- Dominance of the subscription model
- Free games/advertising
- Micropayment

2.3 The players
- The publishers involved, origins, strategies
- The sector’s industrial organisation: production, operation, publishing, distribution
- The service’s organisation

3 - Trends

3.1 What’s so special about MMG?
- Innovative gameplay
- Development technologies
- Favourable technological environment
- Business model

3.2 New trends
- New trends in MMG: Flash games
- Web-based
- Occasional
- Non-video game persistent universes
- Future business models
- Game distribution modes: going all digital?

3.3 MMG and the mass market
- Is a global mass market possible? Under what conditions, and on which devices?
- Is the public ready for persistent universes like Cryopolis and Second Life?
- What business model for the mass market?

3.4 Gamer communities driving the success of MMG
- The role of gamer communities
- Community features
- How do they influence a game’s success or failure?

3.5 Relationship between MMG and persistent universes
- Community at the heart of PU
- Integration through immersion
- Real time interactivity
- Current and future persistent universe applications outside the realm of video games
- Learning curve, simulation, serious games?

4 - Stakes & challenges

- MMG on other devices: home consoles, mobile phones, handheld consoles
- Forecasts: MMG’s share of video game market revenues

For full details, please email keithw@cmsinfo.com

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