By the Numbers: Gaming Industry Stats and Data Points
Mark Twain once quipped "Facts are stubborn but statistics are more pliable." That may often be true. Surveys and their results can skew depending on what, or who, is asked. Still, for quickly digested factoids little wets the appetite better than a small taste of information. Today, in a revival of a prior series of consolidated statistical data, the lens turns to the gaming industry. Below is a sample of gaming industry related statistics and data points.
(Other Metue ‘By the Numbers’ pieces are linked at the bottom of this post).
One in four Internet users worldwide play online games, or a total of nearly 217 million people. Among online game sites, Yahoo was the biggest with about 53 million unique users in May, MSN Games was second with around 40 million (source: comScore).
77% of the world’s online 16- to-29-year-olds would rather live without television than without the Internet. In the U.S., the figure was the same as the worldwide average: 77% (Source: New Paradigm research)
More than 68m people worldwide played a video game console in June. (Source: Nielsen GamePlay Metrics report).
In the second quarter of 2007 U.S. retail e-commerce grew 23 percent versus year ago to $27.2 billion. The biggest growth by category of merchandise came from Video Games, Consoles and Accessories which were up 159% from the same period last year. Sports and Fitness (58%) and Consumer Electronics (51%) were second and third. Event Tickets (44%) was fourth. (source: comScore)
With revenue coming from subscription fees, paid downloaded content and In-Game Advertising, IDC predicts Internet connected consoles will generate revenue near $10.5 billion in 2011, up from $981 million in 2007. They further speculate, In 2011, game-centric DLC will make up 68.6% of online revenue. (source: IDC “Connected Console Forecast”)
28 percent of casual gamers play more than nine game sessions per week with 32 percent of those sessions lasting at least an hour (source: Macrovision survey)
Worldwide mobile gaming end-user revenue will grow from $2.9 billion in 2006 to $9.6 billion in 2011, (source: Gartner, Inc).
Global in-game advertising market generated $77.7 million globally in 2006, but by 2011, worldwide in-game advertising expenditures (fixed product placement/static ads and dynamic ads) will grow to $971.3 million. (source: Yankee Group)
$30.27b = the combined market capitalization (as of today, August 13th) for Electronic Arts, Konami, THQ Inc, Take Two Interactive, Midway Games and Ubisoft. (source: Metue with data from Yahoo Finance)
Three more broadly focused Metue "By the Numbers" Reports can be found at the following links:
i. By the Numbers from around Industry (Part 1) (June 22nd)
ii. By the Numbers (Part 2) More Media Metrics (June 26th)
iii. By the Numbers (Part 3) More Media Statistics (July 4th)
