Newzoo MMO Games Market Report has been released with some fascinating information about North American MMO players and games. Included in the fascinating profile of NA gamers is the statistic that 47.5 million people play MMOs and that 90% of the games played fall under the free-to-play umbrella.
Other interesting statistics:
- 71% play both browser-based and client MMOs
- MMO spending is up 90% as compared to 2009
- Console game players number 120 million as compared to 47.5 million for MMOs though there is cross-over play among gamers.
- 66% of MMO gamers are male
- 52% of MMO gamers are over 25
The statistics reveal, at least according to BigPoint CEO Heiko Hubertz, that F2P is the coming wave in MMOs:
Heiko Hubertz, CEO and founder of Bigpoint believes F2P is poised to become the primary monetization model for the video game industry within 12-18 months. “Once limited to relatively simple Flash-based games, the entire online category is on the verge of achieving a level of quality previously dominated by console and PC-installed games. Regardless, these titles still cost much less to build than retail games; we’re able to drive strong ROI by implementing flexible F2P models and aggressively optimizing them.”
The full report is available at Newzoo for $1,399. Read more here.
