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According to a new report at SuperDataResearch.com, microtransactions are a hugely lucrative enterprise topped by Crossfire Online that generated nearly a billion dollars in revenue last year. The top ten MMOs (MMOFPS/MMORPG/MOBA) brought in substantial amounts of money, including World of Warcraft that generated in $213 million in microtransactions alone in addition to its subscription revenue.
The US digital games market grew 11% in 2013, reaching $11,766 million in sales across all segments, up from $10,582 million a year earlier. With both Christmas and New Year’s taking place mid-week, the digital games sector benefitted across the board, allowing it to reach $1.2 billion in aggregate sales in December, up from $862 million last year (+36%).
Read more about the data breakdown at the link above.
Comments
Of course, the argument can be made, at least on a certain level, that most of these are MMOs in a very broad sense.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Would be neat to see a item category breakdown. Like social items, weapons / enhancements for weapons gear, lottery type items (loot boxes / keys), mounts. Just a good all around breakdown of item types. Never even heard of Crossfire. Just looking at the site, it really made that much?. Yikes!
Edit: I'm just floored by the Crossfire thing. Looking really quick at Youtube videos. It's beating World of Tanks by a massive amount! It looks kind of like Soldier of Fortune 2 or something. WOOOOOOOOW. Still amazed I've never heard of it. Anyone else not aware of that game?
I think CrossFire managed to get those numbers thanks to being released in more countries than WoW. A lot of people going into the microtransaction store.
You know what's fun about chaos? I do, but I won't tell.
SWTOR is in the list number 8 below WoW. People said game was dying and tanking rofl
You know whats crazy about ? If all of them were MMOs:
Star Wars 139Mil/12months/15Dollar=772k subsribers paying 15 Dollar per month
Now it seems like P2P games are still the way to go riiiiiiiiight?
GOOD LUCK ESO- SEE YOU in 6 MONTHS GOING F2P!
The WoW number was only their cash-shop earnings. The subs are on top of that (and I'd wager they're much higher).
Those phrases usually come from people who simply do not like (insert game name here). They are not market analysts nor do they speak on behalf of any group of players as much as they want to think they do. That being said, I honestly didn't expect SWTOR to be in the top 10 with their type of f2p model.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
I play SWTOR subbed. I can tell you the game has a lot of people playing and enjoying it. The story is what makes people love it . It may be a disappointment to some but it has a fan base.
I don't believe SWTOR. It's probably just PR... like when CoD Ghosts reported to have sold "x" amount of copies, yet failed to mention that those sales were to retail stores.
SWTOR has tons and tons of "cash shop / subscription" cards at retailers.
What's interesting is that F2P active users actually dropped off by 10% between November and December, whereas subscriptions stayed stable, but F2P revenues still increased. This shows that there is a core audience funding these games. The so called "riff raff" will clear out and there will be ebbs and flows in active users, but overall spending seems to be healthy.
Also found it interesting that 21% of revenues for P2P MMOs come from micro-transactions.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
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November-December busy time for students. Exams etc.
Given that the average age of MMO players is ~27, it is not just students who curtail their gaming during November and December. It is worth noting that the drop off is also likely due to the holidays and the necessity of spending for gifts, spending time with family rather than in game, etc.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think its worth noting also, that not all WoW subbers pay $15 a month. Doesnt matter if its 3, 5 or 7 mil, you cant just multiply that by 15 and expect to get an estimate of revenue. I would wager if there were 7.6 mil subs that only about 20% of those actually pay $15 a month, the rest something considerably lower.
That's one way to defend your belief ...I guess.
I'm shocked that Tencent volunteered ANY data to be honest, I'd much rather suggest that their numbers are something different entirely. Which kind of makes me skeptical to how accurate the numbers are. And not seeing GW2 (or DOTA2/TSW/Rift/LOTRO even) up there is a big question mark as to how much data the gathered. Telling me that more people play Lineage 1 rather than all these new(er) games and volunteer a lot of money for it makes absolute 0 sense.
No other gaming market share number backs this up even slightly, including Asian and Western numbers.
Right
Asian subs, 6 month/1 year subs etc. Lots of reason why it's more complicated that just multiplying the number by 15. It's still going to be a huge pile of money though.
Superdata is a well known site that just about every company in the industry uses. The prices they charge for buying their full reports isn't something aimed at joe public buying If a company has stocks it has public records. I wouldn't say it's 100% accurate down to the dollar but it's closer than any guess you see here on a forum.