Seems the DFC Intelligence, a strategic market research and consulting firm focused on interactive, has published a really intriguing article entitled, “Is It Possible to Surpass World of Warcraft?”. This article touch bases on the market trends. Well worth the check out…
First, however, it is important to debunk a persistent myth about WoW’s success. The confusion results from WoW’s status as a truly global game. We know, from the game’s Chinese operator the9, that Warcraft has 5 million Chinese players. Of course, this is a terrific feat as WoW became the first Western game to penetrate the dense and difficult Chinese market. However, these Chinese users are not subscribers in the Western sense of the word: they do not pay a recurring monthly fee. In fact, they generate about 0.36 yuan per hour of gameplay; that’s about 4 cents an hour. Of course, Chinese users log a lot of hours. In the second quarter of 2006, World of Warcraft generated $32 million. While this is a substantial sum in the Chinese MMOG world, 5 million Western subscribers would have generated more than $200 million over the same time period. Thus, Chinese players generate about 15% as much revenue as their Western neighbors.
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