REPORT: Online gaming

In the latest of statistics to be release ComScore say the time spent playing online games in the US has grown 42 per cent in the last year.

Furthermore, now gaming online makes up 4.9 per cent of all of America’s internet use, compared to 3.7 per cent in December 2007.

So what does this all mean for you and your project?

Estimated internet users in the US for June 2008 248,000,0000
Number of people playing online games (35% of the US internet population) 86,000,000

Some sites with high volumes of traffic

UVPM (unique visitors per month per site, does not account for people visiting more than one site)

Habbo.com around 500k
IMVU.com around 2.5 million
Real Arcade 1.6 million
Big Fish Games 2.6 million
Miniclip 5 million
Pogo 8.5 million
Yahoo Games 4.5 million
Stardoll 1.3 million

Pogo are attracting a whopping 10% of online gaming traffic.

Do you know why?

For a long time they have been growing an nurturing a community, they have been listening and responding to the needs of their community. They have managed to encourage cooperative gaming and get their community talking while still having a competitive feel. Just as important they manage to develop loyalty. That can only happen if you give players a reason to be loyal. So many sites miss these important fact.

Also you need to be aware of who you are targeting, know your customer, and your market size in relation to competition and age demographics. The published figures can be deceiving and make many developers over estimate the figures they will get to their site.

A good way to go is to decide what you actually want in market share. So if the kids 6-11 sector represents 8 million players and your game is targeted at boys only then cut that by 50%. Then you aim to get 5% market share then you will have 200,000 UVPM. Then of course you have to work out how you will monetize everything so you can stay in business. For that you will need to know conversion ratios, churn rates and what your revenue lines are at the very least.

You may think this is basic stuff but so many times I speak to people or read about money invested in projects that don't have the proper planning or the full understanding of the market.

We shall come back to this topic shortly and put together some examples that may be helpful.