Tuesday, November 17, 2009

How big is the US market for MMORPGs?

Bigeyez alerted me to a Gamasutra article quoting a NPD study saying: "14 percent of U.S. consumers have a subscription to an online game like World of Warcraft." The US has about 308 million citizens, so if this study counted each of them as a possible "consumer", there would be over 42 million people with "a subscription to an online game like World of Warcraft". I have a hard time believing that.

I really wonder what exactly their definition of consumer is, and what their definiton of a subscription is. The report talks about consumer spending on these subscriptions, so did they count only active subscriptions with a monthly fee? Or did they count anyone with a free account to any Free2Play or "social space" online game too?

If there are between 2 and 3 million World of Warcraft subscribers in the US, then what exactly are the other 40 million subscribed to?

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