MMO Revenues down, microtransactions climbing

[Darkmithoron]

MMORPG.COM wrote:

General : New Report Reveals Declining MMO Subscription Revenue Posted Sep 15, 2011 by Suzie Ford A new report from industry analyst iHS: ScreenDigest shows that revenue generated from both MMO and non-MMO subscriptions has declined for fiscal 2010. This marks the first decline since 2002. While the report shows subscription losses at approximately 5% overall in 2010 as compared to 2009, revenue generated through microtransaction sales is increasing. iHS indicates that subscription models for revenue generation are "at a turning point". In general, MMO revenues are expected to increase over the next several years from $2.7 billion USD to $3.1 billion USD in 2015. iHS concludes that microtransactions will be the driving force behind the increase from now through 2015. iHS has also determined that Activision-Blizzard owns a 31% stake in the market with GameForge and BigPoint in second and third places respectively. Read the report's highlights at iHS: ScreenDigest.

MMORPG.COM wrote:

Story of the Week: Subscriptions Losing to RMT This week's Story of the Week highlights a recent analysis from iHS and Screen Digest that details a dip in subscription revenue in favor of microtransactions. Does this herald the end of the monthly subscription? Editorial By William Murphy on September 17, 2011 This week’s Story of the Week is a bit of a “Debbie Downer”. A recently publish analysis of the online games market revealed that subscription revenue has declined while revenue from microtransactions has increased the profits for everyone overall. However, I’m not so sure it’s time to start crying about falling skies or the end of the subscription. If you take into effect that several companies in the past year or so have dropped the subscription model in a last ditch effort to save their games, this can probably explain the 5% drop in subscription revenue the report details. Meanwhile microtransaction totals have increased significantly (in the face of these changes), but what’s more interesting to note is that the cash-shop revenue has apparently increased the total revenue of the market. This means more people are buying things from these item malls, and it’s enough to increase the overall market by nearly half a billion dollars. One has to wonder how much this will increase in 2012 when Guild Wars 2 launches depending on their microtransactions. Will MOBAs be taken into account as well? Because they’re undoubtedly driving some of this growth too. I’m half-tempted to buy the whole document from iHS, because I’d like to see just where they’re pulling their numbers from. One thing is for certain however… the industry is shifting. More and more hybrid revenue models will come into play, and the subscription will eventually be for the elite games only. And who knows how long even they can hold on?