GameON Finance 2.0: Key Gaming Industry Trends And Market Overview

Presentation: Key Gaming Industry Trends and Market Overview

Presenter: Wanda Meloni, President & Senior Technology Analyst, DFC Intelligence

Key points:

• Gaming is a $47 billion global market.
  
  • Console gaming alone is estimated to be $27 billion in size.
  • PC online games is a $6.5 billion industry. Projected to be $13 billion by 2012.
  • Online MMOGs is a $3.5 billion industry.
  • Casual gaming is a $1.5 billion industry.
• Nintendo doing better than expected while PS3 not expected to break-even. Sony can't hold on to its 67% marketshare (with PS2) and will eventually come down to about 50% marketshare.
• World of Warcraft is an incredibly popular and successful MMORPG. Earned $600 million in revenue in '08, with 11 million users. Sells for $50 retail + $15/month.
• BigFish, a casual gaming company, earned $100 million in '08 revenue. Business model orginally was to offer free, ad-supported games but moving on to digital distribution / 'try-before-you-buy' and subscription.
• Casual games
  
  • team size: 25
  • cost: $75k - $300k
  • time: 6 months
• AAA games
  
  • team size: about 100
  • cost: $15 - $30 million
  • time: 2-3 yrs
• MMOGs
  
  • team size: starts at 100 - 450
  • cost: $15 - $25 million + $500k annual cost for servicing users
  • time: 3-5 yrs
• Regional perspective
  • North America - strong diversity; sports, action, first person games more popular
  • Europe - more cost conscious, similar to North American gaming market otherwise
  • Japan - console based
  • Korea/China - MMOGs are more popular.
• Canada's gaming development industry
  • Montreal - 80+ game companies including EA and Ubisoft affiliate studios
  • Vancouver - 100+ game companies, strong affiliate studios.