Almost 40% of Americans Play Freemium Games

Marshall Honorof

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Almost 40% of Americans Play Freemium Games


The free-to-play market is widespread, lucrative, and ruled by women.

From MMO scene [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115643-Facebook-We-Need-Zynga], free-to-play games are everywhere. In fact, statistically speaking, if you're an American, there's a 38% chance that you've played one - and if you're female, you've probably stuck with it for a while. While so-called "freemium" games don't seem to be making a huge impression on the traditional young male gamer audience, this likely makes very little difference to the free-to-play developers, who can count on an average of 40% of players to make at least one in-game payment.

In a survey of over 6000 children and adults, the ubiquitous market-analyzing NPD Group discovered some edifying statistics about free-to-play gaming habits among a number of demographics. In addition to measuring the penetration of and payment rate for freemium games in the American market, the NPD Group determined that women are "significantly more likely" to play these games. 84% of those who play freemium games come back after their initial foray, while 15% abandon them entirely. While men are more likely to pay up than their female counterparts, especially within the first month of play, the coveted 13-34 male demographic generally does not show much interest in freemium games. According to Anita Frazier, an NPD analyst, this is because the demographic includes many core gamers, who are used to a very different kind of experience than what free-to-play games generally offer. "At a minimum," said Frazier, "for these gamers a freemium game would provide a different experience, like a snack versus a full meal."

With the proliferation of more traditional core games, like Firefall [http://ageofempiresonline.com/en/], the same survey could yield very different results a few years down the road. However, while the survey does not necessarily represent every gamer or developer's experience, 6000 participants is a strong sample size. Even if the data doesn't reveal anything shocking, the message is suggestive: There's a lot of money to be made in free-to-play games by capitalizing on a female demographic, but since men seem to have deeper pockets where freemium games are concerned, the core gamer market could be an untapped goldmine. All it will take is the right developer with the right game.

Source: Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/169040/NPD_40_of_freemium_players_pay_for_ingame_upgrades.php]

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gigastar

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Sep 13, 2010
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Can someone clear up what "Freemium" games actually are?

At this time my brains a little too overworked by lack of sleep and Gainax anime to figure it out on my own.
 

Lunar Templar

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gigastar said:
Can someone clear up what "Freemium" games actually are?

At this time my brains a little too overworked by lack of sleep and Gainax anime to figure it out on my own.
any from to play on line game.

MMO wise you have games like City of Heroes, Vindictus and Dungeon Fighter as example

for everything else ... mostly the crap on face book.
 

Baresark

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It's a pretty nice sample size. My favorite bit is the line where it says, "if you are American then you are 38% likely to enjoy Freemium games"... or some such thing. I'm clearly paraphrasing. But, someone needs to learn what statistics mean, lol...

That is the new corporate model, so I'm automatically against it simply because it's the corporate aspect (EA, Activision, Ubisoft) that is ruining gaming. I am starting to see it more and more. People enjoy the games, which is fine, but I have seen some gamer who will not pay for a game anymore. That is fine and dandy, but be sensible and don't be so narrow minded about it.

As a side note, I'm in the Firefall Beta and I'm a bit disappointed. You need to group to do everything. I find people willing to group but all they want to do is run around and grind. It's making me nuts. I daresay, it may be the people who are going to ruin that game.
 

Lancer873

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Well... I'd say that's about right. I mean, you've got damn near EVERYTHING there already! You've got everything from your arena-multiplayer games like Brawl Busters and Team Fortress 2, to your co-op dungeon crawlers like Spiral Knights, to your MUMMORPUGERS (Ohlord there's too many to count there) to your long-term idle games like Farmville and Travian. Freemium has come to the point where it covers pretty much all the bases, and like the article mentions it's only growing more and more.
 

BreakfastMan

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Jul 22, 2010
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Sober Thal said:
-'Almost 40% of the 6,000 Americans We Asked, Have Played Freemium Games At Least Once'-

There ya go, fixed the title for you.

OT: A few thousand people doesn't impress me much.... unless they were all in the same place, at the same time. Maybe one day I'll find a free to play of my own to love and cherish.

I can only dream.
So? That is how statistics works, yo. You can't contact every single member of the population, so you get a suitably random, suitably large sample and extrapolate from that. Statisticians have been conducting experiments this way for years. The title works. :/

OT: Not surprising. Most are easy to find (being advertised every freaking where), run on most everything under the sun, and are fairly easy to pick up and play. Seems pretty obvious they would have high penetration, and I suspect that will only increase over time.
 

Dandark

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Free to play games popular? It could be because other AAA games are pretty much trying to be F2P but without the free part.
 

Baneat

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BreakfastMan said:
Sober Thal said:
-'Almost 40% of the 6,000 Americans We Asked, Have Played Freemium Games At Least Once'-

There ya go, fixed the title for you.

OT: A few thousand people doesn't impress me much.... unless they were all in the same place, at the same time. Maybe one day I'll find a free to play of my own to love and cherish.

I can only dream.
So? That is how statistics works, yo. You can't contact every single member of the population, so you get a suitably random, suitably large sample and extrapolate from that. Statisticians have been conducting experiments this way for years. The title works. :/
I know, christ, someone could do a study of 80% of the population and people will still call it skewed because that last 20% are important for some reason. Unless there's a correlating factor here such as posting this survey on facebook where there are shitloads of freemium games kicking about then it's perfectly valid.

OT: I hate freemium so, so much but Tribes:Ascend is too fun to play. Dichotomy: I'm at the point where I've unlocked everything I want, problem is I'm now unfairly more powerful than free players. I don't know where to go from that.
 

Robert Ewing

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Mother of god... Oh well, at least these peons are providing the gaming industry with some easy moolah.
 

spartan231490

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Sober Thal said:
-'Almost 40% of the 6,000 Americans We Asked, Have Played Freemium Games At Least Once'-

There ya go, fixed the title for you.

OT: A few thousand people doesn't impress me much.... unless they were all in the same place, at the same time. Maybe one day I'll find a free to play of my own to love and cherish.

I can only dream.
6000 is a really good sample size. Really good. That doesn't mean the sample is good, if that was 6000 people who were on fb for example, you would have a higher percentage than normal. If they were in a gun store, on the other hand, the percentage would be lower than normal. However, if it was a random sampling like most marketing surveys are, then 6000 is a phenomenal sample size.
 

newwiseman

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Yep I play Feemiums every couple of months for a few months then get board.

The last one I played was Vindictus (mobinogi heroes) from Nexon, the limited daily questing combined with the action oriented game play and a wholesale lack of grinding was very appealing. Then they raised the level cap opened a new area and made you grind the hell out of it...

I've never paid a dime to the free-to-play games.

I'll probably try League of Legends again soon.
 

Draconalis

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Baresark said:
My favorite bit is the line where it says, "if you are American then you are 38% likely to enjoy Freemium games"... or some such thing. I'm clearly paraphrasing. But, someone needs to learn what statistics mean, lol...
That's one hell of a paraphrase... they never mentioned enjoyment, they merely said there's a 38% chance that you've played one.

And that's how statistics work.
 

Baresark

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Draconalis said:
Baresark said:
My favorite bit is the line where it says, "if you are American then you are 38% likely to enjoy Freemium games"... or some such thing. I'm clearly paraphrasing. But, someone needs to learn what statistics mean, lol...
That's one hell of a paraphrase... they never mentioned enjoyment, they merely said there's a 38% chance that you've played one.

And that's how statistics work.
Statistics never apply to individuals. That is what I meant. They only apply to samples of data covering groups.

You are quite correct though, I paraphrased badly.
if you're an American, there's a 38% chance that you've played one
But, you cannot refer to individuals then give a probability, it doesn't work that way. And this is a bit of English snob but, "if you're an american" is a direct reference to a single individual. Another way I have seen statistics misused is when people get a DUI, they are told they are 60% more likely to re-offend, but it's not true. The truth is that 60% of all people who have gotten a DUI re-offend, but no individual is more or less likely to re-offend based on having gotten one.
 

Draconalis

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Baresark said:
I get and understand what you're saying in terms of the idea of applying statistics to a single person as if it were fact, but I believe that the key words here are "chance" and "likely." It's not confirmed that you have/are, but there's a chance that you might be, and that chance is quantified as 40/60% based on a survey of your peers.

I'm a little out of my element when it comes to syntax of the English language on this level though, It's not something I can point at a dictionary and say "No... this is what this word means" so I admit I might be wrong.
 

TheVioletBandit

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Baneat said:
BreakfastMan said:
Sober Thal said:
-'Almost 40% of the 6,000 Americans We Asked, Have Played Freemium Games At Least Once'-

There ya go, fixed the title for you.

OT: A few thousand people doesn't impress me much.... unless they were all in the same place, at the same time. Maybe one day I'll find a free to play of my own to love and cherish.


So? That is how statistics works, yo. You can't contact every single member of the population, so you get a suitably random, suitably large sample and extrapolate from that. Statisticians have been conducting experiments this way for years. The title works. :/
I know, christ, someone could do a study of 80% of the population and people will still call it skewed because that last 20% are important for some reason. Unless there's a correlating factor here such as posting this survey on facebook where there are shitloads of freemium games kicking about then it's perfectly valid.

OT: I hate freemium so, so much but Tribes:Ascend is too fun to play. Dichotomy: I'm at the point where I've unlocked everything I want, problem is I'm now unfairly more powerful than free players. I don't know where to go from that.

I had a college class on statistics my last semester, so I understand how they work. But honestly, I still think their shit.

captcha: "namby-pamby" So, captcha you've started in on me too I see. Well, I don't think I appreciate the name-calling. So, right back at you smug son of a *****.