Younger gamers
Titles aimed at casual and younger gamers are another growth area. Disney’s Club Penguin and Toontown Online have been successful in attracting the pre-teen audience – and the latter wow gold over a million subscribers. Jagex’s Runescape, which takes the more traditional role-playing setting and repackages it for a younger age group, has a similar number of paying players.
Welsh wow gold a word of warning though.
Welsh argues that price wow gold the real driver. “The growth of the free-to-play market in the west will really help grow the audience for this kind of gaming.”
“There’s no such thing as a casual MMO player. Successful MMOs turn casual gamers into hardcore gamers – it’s how they work, economically.”
Relf recognises the trend: “One of the biggest growth opportunities within the online gaming space is represented by the relatively untapped younger or more casual gaming audience.”
So what happens next in online gaming? Ellingsen thinks diversity is key. “If the message the market receives is that you need to wow gold World of Warcraft in order to be successful, no one is going to dare do it. I truly hope that we will see a lot more niche online games that will get a healthy number of players.”
Diversity, price and big brands like Lego will all help widen the online gaming market, but Relf urges caution to any potential entrant. “World of Warcraft is the iPod of the MMO genre. It’s a phenomenon that may never be replicated again in this space.”
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