Report: MMO Subscription Revenues In Decline

[Earnest Cavalli]

Report: MMO Subscription Revenues In Decline

For the first time since 2002, the overall cash generated by MMO subscriptions has dipped. The culprit? Free to play games.

Eurogamer reports:

In 2010, MMO subscriptions amassed $1.58 billion. Very good. But not as good as the year before - five per cent less.

Compare that to growth of 10 per cent in 2009, and growth of 21.6 per cent in 2008, and you can appreciate why Screen Digest believes 2010 to be a pivotal year.

From here, Screen Digest predicts, the hill will slope downwards. By 2015, we're told that the annual MMO subscription haul will diminish to $1.33 billion.

The report found that money made by micro-transaction games had, on the other hand, increased sharply. In 2010, micro-transaction MMOs made $1.13 billion - 24 per cent more than in 2009.

Money made by all MMOs, therefore, rose only 5 per cent to $2.7 billion in 2010.

Eurogamer makes a specific point to say that this dip is not indicative of any specific drop in the subscriptions of any particular MMO. World of Warcraft is still pulling in stupid huge amounts of cash, and will continue to do so until Blizzard launches another MMO.

That said, it does seem that the free to play model is the wave of the future. It's simply easier to lure in gamers with promises of free gameplay, and despite petulant internet whining, players really don't seem to mind supporting development via ads and microtransactions.

As Eurogamer says, "subscription MMOs will slowly become the exception rather than the norm."

I can't fault the logic, but, as a long-time MMO player, I have to wonder what this economic shift might do to the larger, more creative titles in the genre. Will developers still be granted free rein to cobble together creative, expensive games if the publisher paying the bills isn't guaranteed the sweet revenue stream generated by monthly subscriptions?

Are we going to see smaller, less immersive MMO titles purely by virtue of shrinking development budgets?

Alternately, are MMO developers going to have to seek out more "creative" methods of keeping the money rolling in? Are we only a few years from playing Taco Bell Presents Dungeons And Dragons Online: Chrysler Sebring Edition (Brought To You By GE)?

Don't laugh. You'd play it.

Source: Eurogamer [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-09-15-money-from-mmo-subs-begins-to-decline]

Permalink

 

[Kargathia]

Nothing mentioned about money generated by means other than subscriptions.

It of course is interesting to hear it confirmed that subscriptions are getting less popular, but I at least would like to know to what extent all the hats made up for the loss in revenue.

 

[RaikuFA]

nothing about the fact that it costs $30 to play a month and you gotta buy the game and expansion packs?

plus everytime i read GE i hear it in alec baldwins voice

 

[dragongit]

Well thats a rather big " duh" if the revenue of Subscriptions is due to the games not having them anymore. Microtransactions are the way of the future it seems.

 

[mad825]

Bad news for EA, Oh well. They deserved this.

 

[Atmos Duality]

"In other news, Gaming-Gonorrhea is in decline due to the outbreak of Gaming-Herpes."

Sorry, but I DESPISE MMOs on principle. The nature of the game demands an expensive server system to operate (a static cost that NEVER decreases with time), which in turn leads to time-commitment payment models, which in turn requires some *brutal* gameplay sacrifices (specifically, massive inconvenience and grind).

And when the system starts paying for itself, the temptation to twist the thumbscrews harder is more often than not too great for the developer, and up and up the grind goes (either via new content that doesn't play much differently from old content, ala most of WoW, or via drop rate adjustments or new mechanics) to increase the profits.
Why don't people quit? Addiction models and Skinner Logic. It's far too easy to become addicted, and despite how people spin that, IT'S NOT A GOOD THING.

 

[2xDouble]

I can't fault the logic, but, as a long-time MMO player, I have to wonder what this economic shift might do to the larger, more creative titles in the genre. Will developers still be granted free rein to cobble together creative, expensive games if the publisher paying the bills isn't guaranteed the sweet revenue stream generated by monthly subscriptions?

Are we going to see smaller, less immersive MMO titles purely by virtue of shrinking development budgets?

Alternately, are MMO developers going to have to seek out more "creative" methods of keeping the money rolling in? Are we only a few years from playing Taco Bell Presents Dungeons And Dragons Online: Chrysler Sebring Edition (Brought To You By GE)?

Guild Wars 2 [http://www.guildwars2.com/en/]. 'nuff said.

 

[Sir Shockwave]

This I suppose supports my prediction that The Old Republic will have a very strong launch, and then decline. Especially if some of the news I've heard from Gamescom is correct and accurate, I think we can see people jumping ship to things like Champions Online, Global Agenda or possibly even End of Nations. WoW may not have taken a big hit yet, but it's likely to happen soon.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Did those guys notice that the economy is in the shithole these days? Because that is also one of the reasons that shouldn't be ignored.

 

[Keava]

POssibly because no new MMOs really came out lately. We've been stuck with WoW for quite a while for now, and from it's direct competitors only Rift really holds up, without really making a large breakthrough either. Majority of other MMOs went to F2P/Freemium models.

Will ToR work out? I have no idea. I have no interest either since the game is just too much like WoW and no other subscription based MMOs in next 6 months, guessing the companies will generally look for different ways of supporting games in future.

 

[The Lugz]

Are we going to see smaller, less immersive MMO titles purely by virtue of shrinking development budgets?

Alternately, are MMO developers going to have to seek out more "creative" methods of keeping the money rolling in? Are we only a few years from playing Taco Bell Presents Dungeons And Dragons Online: Chrysler Sebring Edition (Brought To You By GE)?

Don't laugh. You'd play it.

sorry earnest, i cannot accept your reality, so i will have to substitute it for my own
if mmo's go down the pan i will surely not be playing super-low budget ones, but rather the aaa single-player games, and creative immersion games
where's the use in sticking to something while it's being flushed out the toilet?
that's right you end up in the dung heap

i gave up on world of warcraft when i realized i was paying more per year than i would on equivalent content games of a greater graphical and depth of immersion quality
sure, there's hundreds of thousands of hours you can play wow, but that's the point you're paying only to polish your armour and farm gold and minuscule upgrades that essentially do nothing to the gameplay but add 1 extra dps it's only when new content patches land that anything new happens
it's a very poor deal for the player, imo.
i'd rather build a replica of my home town in mine-craft, and spend the same cash on rpg's and racing games at-least i'd have something to show for all my 'grind time' effort rather than +1 to 'omg you're so epic'

i presume that's what allot of people are thinking of sub mmo's at the moment, it's just not worth the time/money investment for the actual fun / reward

 

[Albino Boo]

I think the report ignores the fact that we are in largest global recession in 80 odd years and there is no end in sight of it. The core markets for MMOs all have been hit hard, reducing available funds for subscriptions. Then you add in inflation which is eating away at peoples disposable income, you can understand why subscriptions are falling back. However F2P titles might have become the norm by the time the economy bounces back.

 

[Sixcess]

Bad news for EA, Oh well. They deserved this.

Ninja'd.

TOR's taken too long. If it'd been released a couple of years back it would have been huge. Now it's going to launch at just exactly the wrong time. When I got into MMOs in 08 there were very few 'modern' looking F2P MMOs - by which I mean 3D, not 2D or isometric, and the few that did exist were Korean grindfests.

That's not the case now. There's a lot of good quality former P2P western MMOs gone F2P, covering a lot of different genres. TOR is going to have to work very hard indeed to convince people that it's worth paying for month in month out.

 

[Scarim Coral]

This doesn't suprise me due to the many news about games like Conan, Champion Online etc who had started out as pay per month had now become free to play.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

good riddance, subscriptions piss me off to no end, that's why i avoid MMO's like the plague, the type of game that is WoW and many other MMO's i can't stand.

that won't deter me from playing my first real MMO that is TOR tho, they have my interest, and if it is more story based like it is seeming to be, then they will keep my business.

 

[Giest4life]

Hmm, this report is preceded by another report declaring a decline in WoW subscriptions. Is it too early to form a trend line, guys?

 

[adamtm]

Are we going to see smaller, less immersive MMO titles purely by virtue of shrinking development budgets?

No, we are going to see small budget, niche MMOs. Big on immersion and community interaction with a hardened fan-base.

Tripple A MMOs are going out of style. SW:TOR being one last dieing breath on the market.

My prediction still stands: WoW going F2P in 2013/2014, Titan being F2P with micro-transactions on launch.

 

[Merlark]

Heh, they should call those games "Free to play, Pay to enjoy."
You want new hat? 10 dollars!

 

[Coreless]

I don't blame f2p, I blame it on the fact that the games with subscriptions have been played to death by everyone interested in them. You can only play the same games for so long before you just get tired of them. I personally have never been able to play a f2p game seriously, the advertisements to upgrade are usually everywhere and it just puts me off from the game entirely. The prices in some games are just insane, you end up having to spend a ton of money just to compete and you end up spending more then you would if you just had a flat subscription fee.