Massively multiplayer online games State of affairs

Massively multiplayer online games State of affairs & outlook Laurent Michaud Gontran Filet M60106 2006 edition Copyright IDATE 2006, BP 4167, 34092 Montpellier Cedex 5, France Tous droits réservés – Toute reproduction, stockage ou diffusion, même partiel et par tous moyens, y compris électroniques, ne peut être effectué sans l’accord écrit préalable de l’IDATE. ISBN 2-84822-098-8 All rights reserved. None of the contents of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form, including electronically, without the prior writtIn permission of IDATE. Executive Summary Massively Multiplayer Games Outlook and challenges This IDATE market report examines the state of massively multiplayer online video games in terms of usage, content, market and players, and provides an analysis of the stakes and challenges shaping the sector’s development. 13 million paid subscribers around the globe in mid-2006 representing revenues of 2.5 billion USD. A market fueled by constant innovation in content and gameplay, and marked by the advent of web-based games. Several business models that combine the sale of the game, online subscription and marketing licensed products. Emergence of a parallel market: virtual universes not centred on gaming. Exponential market growth … A major turning point came for the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) market in Iate 2004 when Vivendi Universal Games released its first and only MMOG, World of Warcraft (WoW), developed its Blizzard Entertainment subsidiary. This role-playing game, or RPG, made its debut in a very competitive market dominated largely by popular South Korean titles: at the time, NCsoft was the happy publishers of Lineage, whose paid subscriber base peaked at 3.2 million. Outside Asia, the most popular MMOG is EverQuest and its many addons. Created by Online Entertainment (SOE) it brilliantly manages to continue to sustain a community of more than 500,000 subscribers. After eight months in the market, World of Warcraft had already attracted 2 million gamers; one year later it was boasting 4.5 million subscribers, rising to 6.6 million in June 2006. Never before had a game enjoyed such overwhelming success in so little time. In mid-2006 there were close to 13 million MMOG subscribers around the globe. By the end of the year, this segment of the video game market will represent worldwide revenues of 2.5 billion USD, climbing to roughly 5.5 billion USD by 2010 – in other words doubling in the span of four years, enjoying annual growth in the double digits. In the top three markets alone, namely the US, Japan and Europe, gaming software sales are expected to reach 30.5 billion USD by 2010, at which point MMOG software could account for more than 10% of the market’s revenues. Evolving gameplay and increasingly varied content A new era for these persistent universes is being ushered in by the diversification of gameplay and genres, more specifically the mix of genres and gameplay. The majority of MMOG are roleplaying games in a medieval or heroic fantasy universe. They attract hard core gamers capable of spending hours honing their virtual character’s experience. Real life simulation games came on the scene fairly early on – back in December 2002 for The Sims Online – but were aimed more at occasional gamers which, at the time, were making their first forays into broadband. In June 2005, Second Life, from American developer, Linden Lab, caused a great stir: the experience it gives players is similar to the one dreamed up by Alain Le Diberder, Philippe Ulrich and Canal+ in 1997 in the game Le Deuxième Monde (The Second World). Players create their avatar, build their house, hold the intellectual property rights to the objects they create within the game, can buy land and build on it, resell the objects they have built… Second Life’s sole aim is to create a virtual world wherein the players’ avatar evolves the way they would in real life. The game now has a population of more than 370,000 residents, and some 65,000 paid subscribers. A new trend: web-based massively multiplayer games A new category of MMOG is webbased games which reside on the publisher’s server; no application is downloaded or installed on gamers’ computer. This growing segment includes games without animation, such as Ogame, which simulates a pig breeding farm, and Project Manager Laurent MICHAUD l.michaud@idate.org Massively multiplayer games 2006 edition © IDATE 3 Expert Collection Executive Summary an increasing number of Flash-based games. Habbo Hotel, developed by Finnish firm, Sulake, is a remarkable example of a web-based online community game, playing host to close to 7 million visitors each month, and now populated by over 50 million created characters. Persistent universes beyond the game… The success of online gamer communities is opening up prospects that go well beyond the video game. Massively multiplayer game developers have managed to forge the contours of virtual 3D universes where members of the public other than hard core gamers can now venture. At the same time, new universes are beginning to see the light of day, such as the one created by Second Life (Linden Lab), which are built around the concept of a parallel world duplicated in 3D. Through their avatars, players can interact with one another based on dynamic rules that mirror the real world, and which are being transposed to increasingly realistic virtual universes. The stakes involved here therefore go well beyond the issues of the gaming industry, and become those of virtual societies, giving rise to sociological, social and cultural issues, along with questions concerning communication, private property, rights, identity… Community at the heart of MMOGs The MMOG gamer community is a unique media phenomenon. It plays an active role in bringing the content to life, in some cases writing the scenario while playing, has a starring role in the dynamic, and contributing more or less significantly to the game’s design, primarily in the test phase. This phenomenon is a result of internet users’ desire to be actors in their digital entertainment. The players’ interaction with their gaming environment is a central preoccupation, and they will experiment with the way the adventures they experience in the MMOG play out. A form of literature has been born of their tales, and is shared on community sites, in forums… An emerging ecosystem Adapted and dynamic business models Well before the music, video, TV or even press sectors, video games managed to devise a business model that secured revenues for players along the value chain, and which was in line with gamers’ budgets. From the first signs of the rising popularity of massively multiplayer online games, observers were quick to agree on the wisdom of the business model which, at the time, was based exclusively on buying the game in a retail outlet, and paying a monthly subscription to play it online. But Asian companies in particular are helping business models to evolve. Initially based on subscription, they appear to be branching out into multiple variables, combining purchase and non-purchase in a retail outlet or online, monthly subscription or free, virtual goods trade, ad-based financing… A host of transactions now take place within MMOGs: auctions, purchases, sale of virtual items, land and virtual buildings, exchanging real for virtual money… all are contributing to a new revenue stream for game vendors, who earn a commission on the transactions that take place between the players themselves or through the game’s online operator. Because they are so spread out, it is difficult to get a precise measure of the total worth of the transactions that take place in these persistent universes. Several experts estimate that, for 2004, they could represent as much as 800 to 900 million USD. In 2006, more than 100 million USD in transactions took place on Second Life alone. We can therefore estimate that, with the success of World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, EverQuest II, Dofus, Second Life, Entropia Universe… i.e. games that authorise or give rise to trade around virtual goods, the value of this market is growing at a steady clip. Massively multiplayer games 2006 edition © IDATE 4 Executive Summary Expert Collection The massively multiplayer game market (million USD) 2001 2002 2003 2004 136.2 167.0 207.0 238.4 122.1 135.1 152.4 138.4 213.3 296.5 430.3 566.3 322.3 443.7 634.0 710.0 95.2 119.7 132.6 143.5 889.1 1 162.0 1 556.2 1 796.6 Source : IDATE (Auguts 2006) 2005 273.1 133.2 625.7 768.9 159.5 1 960.4 2006 371.3 163.1 815.4 933.3 225.8 2 508.9 Europe Japan USA Asia Pacific Rest of the World Total Growth of operational massively multiplayer games (1996-2006) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1 996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 20 04 2005 2006 Number of Nom bre de j eux expl oitˇ s operational games Nom bre de nouveaux jeux Number of new games Source : IDATE (September 2006) Growth of MMOG subscribers 14 000 000 13 000 000 12 000 000 11 000 000 10 000 000 9 000 000 8 000 000 7 000 000 6 000 000 5 000 000 4 000 000 3 000 000 2 000 000 1 000 000 0 janv97 Total Current Subsciptions juil97 janv98 juil98 janv99 juil99 janv00 juil00 janv01 juil01 janv02 juil02 janv03 juil03 janv04 juil04 janv05 juil05 janv06 juil06 Source: MMOCHART Massively multiplayer games 2006 edition © IDATE 5 Massively multiplayer online games Table of contents Table of contents 1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................8 2. Introduction to massively multiplayer games ..............................................................................10 2.1. MMOG components ............................................................................................................... 10 2.2. Characteristics of the MMOG offer ........................................................................................ 11 2.2.1. The MMOG offer .......................................................................................................... 11 2.2.2. The top massively multiplayer online games............................................................... 14 3. The MMOG environment and market ............................................................................................17 3.1. MMOGs’ economic environment............................................................................................ 17 3.1.1. Increasingly long commercial and user lifecycles........................................................ 17 3.1.2. Business models: from subscription to item selling ..................................................... 18 3.2. MMOGs’ community environment.......................................................................................... 20 3.2.1. Community at the heart of the phenomenon ............................................................... 20 3.2.2. Gamer profile ............................................................................................................... 21 3.2.3. Gaming modes............................................................................................................. 21 3.3. Market and industry players ................................................................................................... 22 3.3.1. The MMOG market ...................................................................................................... 22 3.3.2. The players .................................................................................................................. 27 4. New development trends and future prospects...........................................................................30 4.1. Development of an autonomous economic system ............................................................... 30 4.2. Other trends and growth outlook............................................................................................ 32 4.3. Online gaming’s growth outlook ............................................................................................. 35 5. Annexes............................................................................................................................................38 5.1. NCsoft .................................................................................................................................... 38 5.1.1. Vital statistics ............................................................................................................... 38 5.1.2. Company profile........................................................................................................... 38 5.1.3. Product description ...................................................................................................... 39 5.2. Vivendi Games....................................................................................................................... 40 5.2.1. Vital statistics ............................................................................................................... 40 5.2.2. Company profile........................................................................................................... 40 5.2.3. Product description ...................................................................................................... 40 5.3. Electronic Arts ........................................................................................................................ 41 5.3.1. Vital statistics ............................................................................................................... 41 5.3.2. Company profile........................................................................................................... 41 5.3.3. Product description ...................................................................................................... 41 5.4. Sony Online............................................................................................................................ 42 5.4.1. Vital statistics ............................................................................................................... 42 5.4.2. Company profile........................................................................................................... 42 5.4.3. Product description ...................................................................................................... 42 5.5. CCP games............................................................................................................................ 43 5.5.1. Vital statistics ............................................................................................................... 43 5.5.2. Company profile........................................................................................................... 43 5.5.3. Product description ...................................................................................................... 43 5.6. Linden Lab ............................................................................................................................. 44 5.6.1. Vital statistics ............................................................................................................... 44 5.6.2. Company profile........................................................................................................... 44 5.6.3. Product description ...................................................................................................... 44 2006 edition © IDATE 6 Massively multiplayer online games Tables & Figures Tables Table 1: The massively multiplayer online game market (million USD) .................................................. 8 Table 2: Number of heroic fantasy and science fiction games.............................................................. 13 Table 3: Top heroic fantasy tames ........................................................................................................ 13 Table 4: Top science fiction games....................................................................................................... 13 Table 5: Top 30 massively multiplayer games, as of 30/06/2006 ......................................................... 23 Table 6: Top MMOG publishers ............................................................................................................ 27 Table 7: Estimated PC game revenues................................................................................................. 35 Table 8: Estimated massively multiplayer online game revenues......................................................... 35 Table 9: Massively multiplayer games’ share of the sector’s revenues ................................................ 36 Figures Figure 1: Growth of operational massively multiplayer online games (1996-2006) .............................. 11 Figure 2: Breakdown of MMO games by volume of operational titles, mid-2006.................................. 12 Figure 3: Growth of massively multiplayer online game subscriptions ................................................. 23 Figure 4: Massively multiplayer games’ market share .......................................................................... 24 Figure 5: Growth of active subscriptions per game (+ 120,000 accounts)............................................ 25 Figure 6: Growth of active subscriptions per game (from 70,000 to 700,000 accounts) ...................... 26 Figure 7: Growth of the PC game market.............................................................................................. 36 Figure 8: Growth of the massively multiplayer online game market...................................................... 36 Figure 9: Growth of massively multiplayer game subscribers............................................................... 37 Figure 10: World video game software market...................................................................................... 37 2006 edition © IDATE 7 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction 1. Introduction Exponential market growth… In mid-2006 there were close to 13 million massively multiplayer online video game, or MMOG, subscribers around the globe. By the end of the year, this segment of the video game market will represent worldwide revenues of 2.5 billion USD, climbing to roughly 5.5 billion USD by 2010 – in other words doubling in the span of four years, enjoying annual growth in the double digits. Table 1: The massively multiplayer online game market (million USD) 2001 Europe Japan USA Asia Pacific Rest of the World Total 136.2 122.1 213.3 322.3 95.2 889.1 2002 167.0 135.1 296.5 443.7 119.7 1,162.0 2003 207.0 152.4 430.3 634.0 132.6 1,556.2 2004 238.4 138.4 566.3 710.0 143.5 1,796.6 2005 273.1 133.2 625.7 768.9 159.5 1,960.4 2006 371.3 163.1 815.4 933.3 225.8 2,508.9 Source: IDATE (August 2006) In the top three markets alone, namely the US, Japan and Europe, gaming software sales are expected to reach 30.5 billion USD by 2010, at which point MMOG software could account for more than 10% of the market’s revenues. Evolving gameplay and increasingly varied content A new era for these persistent universes is being ushered in by the diversification of gameplay and genres, more specifically the mix of genres and gameplay. The majority of MMOG are role-playing games in a medieval or heroic fantasy universe. They attract hard core gamers capable of spending hours honing their virtual character’s experience. Real life simulation games came on the scene fairly early on – back in December 2002 for The Sims Online – but aimed more at occasional gamers which, at the time, were making their first forays into broadband. In June 2005, Second Life, from American developer Linden Lab, caused a great stir: the experience it gives players is similar to the one dreamed up by Alain Le Diberder, Philippe Ulrich and Canal+ in 1997 in the game Le Deuxième Monde (The Second World). Players create their avatar, build their house, hold the intellectual property rights to the objects they create within the game, can buy land and build on it, resell the objects they have built… Second Life’s sole aim is to create a virtual world wherein the players’ avatar evolves the way they would in real life. The game now has a population of more than 370,000 residents, and some 65,000 paid subscribers. A new trend: web-based massively multiplayer games A new category of MMOG is web-based games which reside on the publisher’s server; no application is downloaded or installed on gamers’ computer. This growing segment includes games without animation, such as Ogame, which simulates a pig breeding farm, and an increasing number of Flashbased games. Habbo Hotel, developed by Finnish firm Sulake, is a remarkable example of a webbased online community game, playing host to close to 7 million visitors each month, and now populated by over 50 million created characters. Adapted and dynamic business model Well before the music, video, TV or even press sectors, video games managed to devise a business model that secured revenues for players along the value chain, and which was in line with gamers’ budgets. From the first signs of the rising popularity of massively multiplayer online games, observers were quick to agree on the wisdom of the business model which, at the time, was based exclusively on buying the game in a retail outlet, and paying a monthly subscription to play it online. 2006 edition © IDATE 8 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction But Asian companies in particular are helping business models to evolve. Initially based on subscription, they appear to be branching out into multiple variables, combining purchase and nonpurchase in a retail outlet or online, monthly subscription or free, virtual goods trade, ad-based financing… Persistent universes beyond the game The success of online gamer communities is opening up prospects that go well beyond the video game. Massively multiplayer game developers have managed to forge the contours of virtual 3D universes where members of the public other than hard core gamers can now venture. At the same time, new universes are beginning to see the light of day, such as the one created by Second Life (Linden Lab), which are built around the concept of a parallel world duplicated in 3D. Through their avatars, players can interact with one another based on dynamic rules that mirror the real world, and which are being transposed to increasingly realistic virtual universes. The stakes involved here therefore go well beyond the issues of the gaming industry, and become those of virtual societies, giving rise to sociological, social and cultural issues, along with questions concerning communication, private property, rights, identity… The goal of this IDATE report is to explore the online community games market with respect to usage, content and industrial concerns. We will pinpoint the central challenges involved in the mass development of these games, their business models and their potential applications outside the world of virtual entertainment 2006 edition © IDATE 9 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction to massively multiplayer games 2. Introduction to massively multiplayer games 2.1. MMOG components Video games… Games are characterised by 2D-3D animation and gameplay, in other words the set of rules that governs the way the game is played and its story line, organising sessions, managing players and their evolution in the game. Gameplay and animation are associated with players’ ability to interact with the virtual environment. Most MMOGs are RPG (Role Playing Game), FPS (First Personal Shooter) or simulations. …massively multiplayer… This term refers to both the community aspect of online games and the volume of gamers involved. The consensus is that a game that can host several hundred players simultaneously on its servers can be referred to as massively multiplayer. Each server generally hosts between 3,000 and 5,000 players simultaneously. Eve Online’s servers can host up to 25,000 players at the same time. The term “massively” also refers to the fact the gamer community is at the heart of gameplay in online games. …communities… There is as much talk about online gamer communities as there is of massively multiplayer games. The community is vital to MMOGs, whether aimed at occasional or hard core gamers. It therefore implies the deployment of more or less elaborate tools for communication (audio chat, forum, instant messaging, blog), association (federation, collaboration, cooperation), personalisation (recognition, identification), information (player and guild rankings, game news), with varying success rates. This is still a nascent part of the gaming market which is still finding its bearings in both the community dynamic and gameplay. But each new game tends to build on its predecessors’ innovations, at a more or less rapid pace. The MMOG player community is organised around guilds: more or less lasting associations of gamers who share the same values. The guilds are particularly relevant within the game itself, but can also extend beyond it. They take full advantage of the online tools at their disposal to extend the life of the games outside the virtual universe. … online… Online games can only be played on the internet. The network is at the heart of MMOGs, enabling the creation of communities, the scenario to play out… Most other video games which are played on a PC or a home console do not require an internet connection. Some do, however, have an online option that allows gamers to go one on one or in teams, albeit not in a persistent universe – and they can generally only host a maximum of 32 players at any given time. …persistent… In other words the existence of the gaming universe and the way in which it evolves are independent of the gamers’ interaction. When a player leaves the game, his avatar leaves the universe but the universe continues to exist autonomously in an independent time and place. Some games, such as Mankind (Cryo Interactive), continue to manage the avatars even when the player is not online, without the persistence of the universe being compromised. A game’s persistence can also be viewed with respect to the devices. This involves a persistence that allows the player to continue to interact with the game’s environment, even though he has logged off the platform hosting the game. A game installed on a personal computer, for instance, can also be accessed via mobile phone. As a result, a Mankind player can be notified by SMS of an unexpected turn of events concerning his fleet of spaceships. Although appealing in the continuity that it offers gamers, this type of persistence has not yet been overly explored in MMOGs. Persistence and the massive nature of video games have been questioned in certain games. In World of Warcraft, groups of players (up to 40) can visit zones as part of non persistent stages in the game. In Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach (Codemasters), with the exception of travel between the places to explore, most of the stages in the game are non persistent episodes. 2006 edition © IDATE 10 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction to massively multiplayer games Borderless universes MMOGs are universes with a name, made up of places for the players to visit and explore and just as many, if not more, servers for the technical service provider to manage. Each server can host an average 3,000 to 5,000 players simultaneously. There is no crowding in the MMOG universe: the landscape is very vast. These universes were developed by eliminating the physical frontiers, the restrictive corridors of earlier games, and so allowing gamers to roam and evolve freely within them. Ultimately, servers act as parallel universes which evolve in disparate ways, depending on how the communities interact with one another and the how gamers interact with the game. 2.2. Characteristics of the MMOG offer 2.2.1. The MMOG offer Abundant offer IDATE has counted more than 200 massively multiplayer video games, of which close to 110 are operational, close to 60 at the development stage and some 30 in beta testing. Between 2003 and 2005, the number of operational MMOGs grew by 90%, going from 48 to 91. The lifecycle of a massively multiplayer game guarantees its commercial operation over the medium term. Even if Ultima Online, Asheron's Call and EverQuest suffered when World of Warcraft burst on the scene, they nonetheless continue to exist six years on. The editorial quality of MMOGs, the economic success of certain titles, the wisdom of dynamic business models, and the advent of massive games for occasional gamers are all trends that will undoubtedly fuel the ongoing increase in the number of games developed, and so the offer’s continued expansion over the coming years. Figure 1: Growth of operational massively multiplayer online games (1996-2006) 12 0 10 0 80 60 40 20 0 1 996 19 9 7 19 9 8 1 9 99 2 00 0 20 0 1 2 0 02 2 00 3 20 04 20 0 5 2 0 06 Number de je ux e xp No m breof operational lo itˇ s games Number d new games N om bre ofe no uvea ux j eux Source: IDATE (September 2006) 2006 edition © IDATE 11 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction to massively multiplayer games An offer dominated by heroic fantasy and science fiction MMOGs are aimed chiefly at hard core gamers, and encompass 7 genres: • • • • • • • Heroic Fantasy History Horror Sport Superhero Science fiction Virtual realism Heroic fantasy is by far and away the most prominent genre, accounting for two-thirds of the operational titles. Science fiction, or futuristic, games account for around twenty operational titles, or 18% of MMOGs in terms of volume. The remaining genres still make up the minority, although we have witnessed a swift rise of sport games for the whole family since 2005. The fact of having to reconcile the demands of sports games (fast action, large number of movements, collisions) with the technical limitations of data transmission over the web, creating too much lag, had long proved an obstacle to sports games’ development. Although broadband flat rates helped speed things up, lag did not drop proportionately. As a result, developers had to make a concerted effort to respond to the growing demand for sports games, so they focused chiefly on games that did not involve regular collisions, such as golf, or ones where collisions could be anticipated. Real Life (or lifestyle simulation) games appeal to a broader swath of the public than role-playing games. They have been around since 2002, the pioneer in the field being The Sims Online (Maxis, Electronic Arts), but their real success came in 2005, thanks chiefly to Second Life, from US developer, Linden Lab. Figure 2: Breakdown of MMO games by volume of operational titles, mid-2006 Virtual realism 4% Scie nce Fi cti o n 1 8% Sup er He ro 2% Spo rt 1% H o rro r 2% Hi s to ry 6% Fan tas y 6 7% Source: IDATE (September 2006) 2006 edition © IDATE 12 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction to massively multiplayer games Table 2: Number of heroic fantasy and science fiction games State of development Number of operational games Number of games in beta Number of games under development Source: IDATE (September 2006) Heroic fantasy 73 23 47 Science fiction 20 6 13 Table 3: Top heroic fantasy tames Name EverQuest I, II, Online Adventures Ultima Online Guild Wars World of Warcraft Dungeons & Dragons Online Lineage 1, 2 Final Fantasy XI Dark Age of Camelot Asheron's Call Ragnarok Online Toontown Online Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning Developer/Publisher Sony Online Entertainment Origin/EA ArenaNet/NCsoft Blizzard Entertainment/VUG Turbine Entertainment/Codemasters NCsoft Square Enix Mythic Entertainment Turbine Entertainment/Microsoft Gravity Corp. VR Studio/Buena Vista Interactive Mythic Entertainment/Codemasters Source: IDATE (September 2006) Table 4: Top science fiction games Name PlanetSide Anarchy Online The Matrix Online RF Online Star Wars Galaxies EVE Online Entropia Universe Developer/Publisher Sony Online Entertainment Funcom Monolith CCR, Inc./Codemasters LucasArts/SOE CCP Games MindArk Source: IDATE (September 2006) MMOGs taking occasional into account After having equipped themselves with a broadband connection, found their way around the internet and become expert in its many uses and its economy, occasional gamers are now ready to take advantage of the entertainment it provides. Aware of a growing demand for MMO titles amongst occasional gamers, developers of traditional massively multiplayer online games are now working to modify some of their new titles’ interface and gameplay in a bid to attract this large and solvent new target audience – creating content whose themes address a much broader public. In terms of gameplay, the games’ avatars advance much more quickly, and so preventing occasional gamers from getting bored by having to gather experience points. In classic MMOGs, players had to spent dozens of hours playing before their avatar achieved any real power. Developers are also aware that the learning curve has to be quite short, and so are developing increasingly intuitive interfaces, user-friendly access and play. 2006 edition © IDATE 13 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction to massively multiplayer games Success of fully web-based MMOGs Other developers and/or developer communities are involved in the design and online deployment of a new type of MMOG, namely fully web-based massively multiplayer games. They appear to correspond to occasional gamers’ demands, given their huge popularity with that group. These games, which include Ogame, Habbo Hotel, BattleArenas, Travian, Kochonland, Vendetta… do not need to be downloaded, or any application installed on players’ computers. Developed in Flash, PHP or HTML, they can be fully or partially animated, or without animation. One of the main lessons learned by the success of fully web-based occasional MMOGs is the lack of correlation between the quality of the animation and graphics and the popularity of the games. What accounts for their success, then? First, these games are not geared to lengthy play, nor taking pleasure in evolving slowing in the game. A few minutes a week to a few minutes a day are enough to devise a strategy, play against others, evolve your avatar or its structures, configure the game’s elements, measure the impact of previous configurations… Occasional gamers do not have a lot of time to play, but are nonetheless demanding with respect to the gaming experience and these occasional games satisfy these requirements. Second, the community aspect is still a very important factor in the game. With titles like BattleArenas or those from German publisher, GameForge (Ogame, Vendetta, Andaloria, Civil Attack…), all nonanimated real time strategy games, players spend more time on the forum planning their strategy with other alliance members, defining the alliance’s policies, than actually building their forts or attacking vessels. Third, these examples do seem to demonstrate that, in its ability to foster a sense of fun, the gameplay involved can prove more compelling than the quality of the animation and graphics. Although by no stretch a phenomenon on par with World of Warcraft, Ogame does nonetheless boast more than 100,000 active accounts in Europe. And, finally, these games are usually available for free. The developer/publisher/service operator finances its activities with advertising banners. But this explanation alone is not enough to explain their popularity, given that paid games too are proving very popular. Plus, an occasional game that satisfies all these criteria is by no means guaranteed success. From a more general perspective, it seems clear that the fully web-based MMOG offer, both occasional and hard core, will continue to proliferate. The internet population continues to grow, and adopted by people whose consumption habits and tastes have not yet been satisfied. We should also keep in mind that this is a nascent market, both in terms of business model and editorial content, and that the players involved have little experience to draw from. 2.2.2. The top massively multiplayer online games Background • From Dungeons & Dragons to MUD In 1972, Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax created the first system of rules for the game, Dungeons and Dragons. This role-playing game (RPG) combined a board game and a war game. The rules of the game also included the new concept of Dungeon Master, a player responsible for creating a detailed scenario to be followed by the other players who work in groups and not against one another. Game mechanics for the way that characters can progress are defined based on the intrinsic quality of the scenario and on players’ capacity to progress through the challenges they will meet throughout the game. The widespread adoption of personal computers and, a little while later, the deployment of the first university networks in the US, led role-playing games to be transferred to the computer. And so, in 1979 MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) was born. Here, players evolved within a text environment where several dozen virtual locations were described, and the scenario was enhanced by the players themselves. Players connected to the game simultaneously and communicated via text commands that affected the way a session evolves. The universe was persistent: if a player disconnects, he leaves the session, but the universe continues to evolve through the other players. MUDs were thus the first forms of cyberspace. 2006 edition © IDATE 14 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction to massively multiplayer games The best-known MUDs are Adventure and LambdaMOO (MUD Object Oriented), launched in the early 1990s by Pavel Curtis. • The advent of graphics In 1985, Randall Farmer and Chip Morningstar created the Habitat project, a persistent virtual universe equipped with a 2D graphic interface. The goal of the Habitat project was to recreate a town of some 20,000 homes – giving birth to the term avatar, to refer to the players’ virtual incarnation. In September 1996, American publisher 3DO developed Meridian 59, the first massively multiplayer role-playing game in a persistent universe available on the internet. The game was designed in 3D, and provided a subjective view of the 60 regions to travel. Immersion in the game was only slightly improved, despite the pixelated graphic environment. The servers could host 150 simultaneously players, who went head to head in Player versus Player (PvP) mode. In 1997, Electronic Arts released Ultima Online, and opened up a whole new era: that of massively multiplayer games, hosting tens of thousands of hard core gamers at the same time, each paying around 10 USD a month to immerse themselves in the virtual universes. Three generations of MMOGs • The first generation: the pioneers Ultima Online (UO) was the first widely popular game in the US. In March 2003, it had a base of 250,000 subscribers. It was developed by Electronic Arts subsidiary, Origin Systems, headed by Richard Gariott. Players paid around 10 USD to buy the game, and around 12 USD a month for their online subscription. In isometric 3D, the setting is a vast medieval universe called Britannia. And even though players are confined to a limited space, the game broke down the traditional boundaries of the corridors and levels that had to be travelled in traditional video games. EA created an architecture of servers that could each host up to 16,000 players simultaneously. Players operated within an economic and political ecosystem; they could build objects and sell them and, with the resources they acquired, they could buy a house. They could form guilds and choose a speciality within the universe, while avatar personalisation features (clothing, skin and hair colour) allowed them to create distinct characters. In Asia, NCsoft introduced Lineage, which attracted some 3.2 million subscribers and became the subject of close scrutiny by the company’s Western rivals. After isometric 3D UO came first person 3D in real time in 1999, with the game EverQuest (EQ) developed by Verant Interactive and published by Sony Online Entertainment. It was to become the most popular game in the US and Europe until World of Warcraft hit the market. Inspired directly by the Dungeons and Dragons universe, EQ remains a benchmark of longevity. In September 2004, it had 550,000 subscribers after five years of existence, and in May 2006 could still boast 200,000 players. In Asia, EQ was overthrown by Lineage, from South Korean publisher NCsoft, and Final Fantasy XI (Square Enix), which peaked at 650,000 subscribers in May 2005. Games are becoming more focused on the character and its progress through a series of combats in the game’s environment, rather than on the ecosystem. The game introduces the notion of cooperation between players to achieve their quests, which generally involve slaying monsters. In 1999, Microsoft enters the MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) market with a game developed by Turbine Entertainment, Asheron's Call (AC). Based on the same successful recipe as its rivals, it offers innovations in its battle system, its guild system and an avatar hierarchy and, for the first time, the gaming environment evolves graphically over time. It also marks a degree of progress on the editorial side of things, with a more complex general scenario. Asheron's Call was particularly lauded by the gamers themselves. The community tools enabled a proliferation of guilds, detailed accounts of the adventures experienced in AC are published on the guild sites… and some of the avatars even got married, virtually. 2006 edition © IDATE 15 Massively multiplayer online games Introduction to massively multiplayer games • The second generation: the transition In October 2001, Dark Age of Camelot (DAOC), developed by Mythic Entertainment, became available online on the French portal GOA, a France Telecom subsidiary. The game is adapted to the French market (localisation, local servers), and grew to 50,000 active accounts in France, eventually hitting a peak of 250,000 subscribers around the world. The innovation supplied by DAOC was the introduction of "Realms versus Realms" (RvR) mode. New players have to choose between one of the three available realms, to then help battle it out with the other two. Although players still work on making their avatar more powerful, it is now done more within the community dimension which is bigger than ever before. In 2001, Norwegian developer-publisher, Funcom, unveils the first ever futuristic persistent universe, Anarchy Online. Meanwhile, Asian publishers too continue to explore persistent universes. Square Enix creates an MMORPG version of its most popular game (selling over 50 million copies worldwide): Final Fantasy XI. It is the first MMOG to be available for consoles (Sony Computer Entertainment’s PS2) and PCs. By May 2005, the game had a base of 650,000 subscribers. In May 2003, American studio, Lucas Arts, develops Star Wars Galaxies (SWG), adapted from the eponymous licence from George Lucas’s movie studio. SWG is the first MMOG based on a movie. It reported 300,000 active accounts a year after launch, and was followed in 2005 by The Matrix Online. There is no doubt that MMOGs created under licences from the movies, TV or other popular universes already widely exploited by traditional publishers will continue to grow in number in the years to come. EVE Online, developed by CCP Games, offers players the chance to manage a fleet of spaceships in a particularly vast universe composed of 5,000 stars. The game is reminiscent of Mankind, developed by Canadian studio, Vibes, and published by Cryo Interactive. Available since April 2003, EVE Online now has more than 125,000 subscribers, and is unique in that avatars are not involved. NCsoft launched the first subscription-free MMOG, Guild Wars. While following in the steps of its predecessors, it also introduces the ability to buy artefacts within the game. This generation came to a close with the phenomenal success of Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft. Blizzard’s developers managed to take advantage of the features and gameplay that made its predecessors’ success, while also offering an attractive universe that was developed over the course of the three offline versions of the real time strategy game, Warcraft. The success of WoW is such that its publisher plans on creating an MMOG of its other main franchises, Starcraft and Diablo. • The third generation The third generation is marked by two phenomena: the first is the success of realistic simulation MMOGs, such as There and Second Life, and the relative success of The Sims Online. The latter is the online version of the popular eponymous game from Electronic Arts. A simulation of social life, it was ahead of its time. The massive online gaming market was not yet mature enough, added to which it was competing with free or partially free games like Habbo Hotel. Second Life contributed a great deal to the genre’s evolution, notably by introducing economic and social elements. Players can acquire goods with real money, and become their actual owners. This type of function adds a new dimension to the game, bringing it inexorably closer to real life. There are also other games with original themes being developed, aiming at a different audience. One example is ToonTown Online, based on the Walt Disney universe, the first MMOG for children – although parents (a.k.a. adulescents) are known to play along with their kids. Dofus, a game from French developer, Ankama, was no doubt a surprise to a great many observers, even those in the business. Combining an astonishing graphic quality with an appealing universe and an affordable business model, the game is proving very popular, well outside its home turf. 2006 edition © IDATE 16 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market 3. The MMOG environment and market 3.1. MMOGs’ economic environment 3.1.1. Increasingly long commercial and user lifecycles There are two distinct lifecycles in the video game market. The first relates to usage and the other to the product’s shelf life, according to the publisher’s policy. Of course, the two are intertwined: if a game is particularly popular, and if it offers the ability to play over and over in a different way, its lifecycle with users will be longer, and so will its shelf life. Furthermore, a number of games enjoy a particularly long second lifecycle in the used game market. A good case in point here is Half-Life (Valve Software/Vivendi Universal Games), released in 1998 and still popular right up to the release of the second opus in 2004, and beyond. Shipped with a level editor, the game allowed communities of developers to create new gaming spaces and even a new title, Counter Strike, which is played in teams (online or on a Local Area Network - LAN) and is always on hand at all of the international video game tournaments. Like with MMOGs, the community is at the heart of the game’s commercial success. A classic video game can have a user lifecycle of three to six months, depending on the number of hours of play planned for by the developer, on its success with gamers who will spread the word, and on the publisher’s choice of how long to run the marketing campaign and/or invest in the brand. In addition, a game that allows occasional gamers to go head to head online on dedicated servers will also enjoy a longer lifecycle both with users and commercially. Examples include titles such as Unreal (Epic MegaGames/Atari) and Quake (Id Software/Activision). MMOGs’ lifecycle is generally longer than traditional video games’, and is at least as long as that of a handful of classic games with an online matchmaking component (Warcraft, Starcraft, Cossacks, Age of Empire, Quake, Unreal, Counter Strike...). Ultimately, an MMOG lasts as long as its community continues to thrive. The very first massively multiplayer game, Ultima Online, which appeared on the web in 1997, still boasts a loyal community of devotees. User lifecycle prolonged by interaction and identification… The greater the possibilities of user interaction within a game’s environment, the longer the player will remain involved in the universe. So, a player who is able to create his own space or home inside a persistent universe will want to stay there, organise it, develop it. Some games even allow players to become the owner of virtual objects they create, and so would be upset to see the servers shut down, depriving them of being able to exercise their rights as property owners. In the same vein, some games allow player to buy parcels of land for real money. The owner of the virtual land can either make use of the plot or sell it to another player, again for real money. Naturally, in cases like these, the universe has to have a long enough lifecycle to allow players to amortise their investments. The avatars’ characteristics too contribute to an MMOG’s longevity. The more complex they are, while remaining accessible to a large number of users, the more the players will become attached to them. The more a virtual character is able to evolve, the more it encourages the player to develop it. The more it can be customised, the more the player will identify with his avatar, and so form a deeper attachment. … and the community Lastly, MMOGs’ particularly long lifecycle can also be attributed to their capacity to create and sustain a community. Communities enjoy interacting and evolving through a persistent universe. A community of players migrates when it finds another game that offers even more efficient ways to communicate, to express themselves, to develop and to evolve over time. MMOGs’ community aspect is independent of the game. For now, it appears that video games have given communities the means to create themselves, and to exist – and they are one of the internet’s most powerful offshoots. But it nonetheless remains true that, in the Web 2.0 era, other forms of virtual 3D communities are developing, without necessarily the pretext of a game at their centre. If some MMOGs have a collective goal which, once achieved, marks the end of the game, most are designed to last an indefinite length of time. Players eventually tire of the game and are replaced by new aficionados. Of course, shutting a server down can create certain issues for players who have become very attached to the virtual world. Turbine’s shut down of the Asheron’s Call 2 servers in 2005, and Goa’s of Quatrième prophétie’s servers in France, both caused an uproar amongst players who found themselves deprived of their meeting place. 2006 edition © IDATE 17 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market 3.1.2. Business models: from subscription to item selling The first business models proposed to gamers, back in 1996 with the game Meridian 59, emulated pay-TV models based on a monthly subscription. MMOGs were thus the first internet content to quickly devise a persuasive and viable business model with early adopters. The models have changed and adapted regularly over time, as the MMOG community grows and evolves. Advertising has now become a source of revenues for MMOG developers and/or publishers, enabling them to recruit gamers by relieving them of the cost of buying the game and/or subscribing to the online service. At the same time, the ability to sell items or particular expertise within the game itself is becoming an increasingly popular practice with gamers. So we now find a variety of business models ranging from all free to all paid, and which may include combinations of item selling and advertising. On the whole, there are four main systems that currently coexist: • Game purchase + paid subscription This is still the most widely-used business model, with more than a third of operational MMOGs based on it. The game can be purchased in two ways. When bought in a retail outlet, it costs between 30 and 50 USD – the average price of the 90 MMOGs examined by IDATE being 27 USD. This marketing model is generally the one adopted by publishers who also offer non massively multiplayer titles – the governing principle when marketing non MMOGs being physical distribution, an area that publishers have mastered via their subsidiary that handles negotiations with retailers. Games can also be downloaded, in which case they are generally less expensive: between 5 and 10 USD. Downloading has been adopted by publishers without the financial means to distribute their titles physically – most of them being developers which self-publish and self-distribute their products. Under this business model, subscriptions are generally monthly, although some do offer quarterly or annual subscriptions. The average monthly cost of the subscription in generally under 11 USD. For titles that have come onto the web since 2005, the average cost of buying the game in a retail outlet is 40 USD, and the average monthly subscription cost is more than 14 USD. • Game purchase + free subscription This is not a terribly common model, with only four of the 90 games being studied have adopted it – two of them coming from South Korean publisher, NCsoft in 2005 and in 2006. Offering free subscription is a particularly risky choice, depriving the publisher of guaranteed and regular income. But NCsoft plans on making up for this by developing other more lucrative, albeit riskier, sources of revenue, namely item sales. NCsoft’s decision derives in part from the fact that the item selling model has been deployed successfully in South Korea, and can also be viewed as a response to the overwhelming popularity of World of Warcraft, despite being the most expensive game on the market (49.99 USD) and charging one of the highest subscription prices (14.95 USD). Publishers also market add-ons for the initial game as a means of generating revenues. More than 10 MMOGs have been enhanced with add-ons, including EverQuest (11 add-ons), Ultima Online (8 addons) and Dark Age of Camelot (6 add-ons). • Free game + paid subscription A third of the games examined in this report operate under this model, with an average subscription price of 10 USD, and all are downloadable. This model is generally employed by developers who publish and distribute their games themselves. Their choice is dictated by financial considerations, these players being unable to access the physical game distribution market. But digital distribution is fully in line with current consumer practices, as a result of which it has opened up a real opportunity for developers to circumvent publishers and address gamers directly. • Free game + free subscription Free games that do not require a subscription are generally those with little or no animation, and so requiring very little investment compared to classic MMOGs. They are designed by small developers, or by gamer communities. The fact of offering them for free makes it possible to attract an audience which is not necessarily willing to pay to play games online. 2006 edition © IDATE 18 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market Some of these titles can generate revenues other than the sums paid for subscription or to buy the game. The micropayment system appears to be increasingly entrenched in internet users’ habits, and they are increasingly willing to pay small sums of money for services which enhance the online gaming experience. These can include a better browsing interface or more community tools, or expanded access to certain areas of the game. Per-event payment or micropayment is a practice akin to the development of item selling, which is also managed on a per-event basis. When combined with advertising, managed in real time in the online game, item selling appears promised a bright future. It has already proven itself in Asia, and has made its way to the West in titles like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. This form of income could generate greater revenues for MMOG operators than subscriptions, whether combined or not with the retail purchase of the game. Gamers could feel less burdened financially if not obliged to pay a subscription, and so be more inclined to make micropayments according to their needs, as their avatar evolves in the game, or according to their financial resources. Game operators are thus creating marketplaces where virtual goods are put up for auction. Any virtual good can be sold: clothing, land, houses… auctioned off either by the gamers themselves or by the operator. Even with the very first MMOGs, a great many gamers sold artefacts, characters or land at auction on sites like eBay. Tired of seeing this potential source of income slip through their fingers, publishers eventually opted to implement the marketplace system inside the games themselves. The implications of MMOG operators creating marketplaces are not being overlooked by the gamers, who are by no means blind to the publishers’ commercial goals. As a result, item selling needs to follow certain rules to be accepted by the gamers: • The sale of items must not lead to a distortion of the rules of the game, which are the basis of players’ commitment to the universe. So the areas of application of the sales must be defined precisely, and not affect the other elements of gameplay. • Item selling must not create inequality between the players, unless specified when incorporated into the universe. Except in voluntarily oligarchic universes, it is dangerous to manipulate the sale of items without the gamer community’s cooperation. • Gamers want to have a hand in the game’s environment, and consider the game as their property. They could view an intervention from the operator as an intrusion, if it is not first presented and justified to the players, and given their approval. As a result, all commercial enterprise needs to be introduced gradually, and be separated from the interface that allows players to evolve in the game as much as possible. Players should also be given the time to get used to the commercial tools in the same way they found their way around the universe and their avatar, so the publisher needs to supply the means necessary to enable this adaptation process. • And, finally, players need to trust the item selling service. Nothing should be left to chance, and any possibility of cheating needs to be prevented at all cost. 2006 edition © IDATE 19 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market 3.2. MMOGs’ community environment 3.2.1. Community at the heart of the phenomenon The community is made up of an MMOG’s players, and is generally broken down into subcommunities called guilds or clans. By nature, the gamer community is the heartbeat of an MMOG, responsible for its success or its failure. It defines itself through its specific organisation, its singular contribution to the game’s design, and it various character traits that make it difficult to fully control. Guilds as federating element Guilds are incarnations of the gamers’ different perceptions of the game, or which they want to develop within the game’s environment. They steer the players’ chivalrous or destructive values, and in some cases are composed of players with no specific goal in mind. Cooptation can be required to join certain clans while, for others, one need only ask to join. In all cases, a guild allows players who share the same values or ways of playing to come together and evolve together in the game. In some games, players have to be a member of a guild to advance while, in others, they can go it alone but the ultimate appeal of the game lies in the association of the players. It is thus entirely in publishers’ interest to provide tools that enable guilds to form and express themselves. Guilds fuel the game, give life to the gameplay and, ultimately, ensure the game’s survival. Some guilds are even active in several MMOGs. Alliance des Seigneurs (ADS/Alliance of the Lords) out of France is one the most dynamic examples, being present in most MMOGs that operate in the West. Ultimately, these alliances create ways to exist outside the games that gave birth to them. They generally have their own independent website, along with discussion forums dedicated to each of the games and recognisable e-mail addresses that members can customise. Guild attributes Guilds can have several hundred or even several thousand members – so constituting a power not to be underestimated, and which can be used to put pressure on a game’s operator. Although guilds generally express their concerns outside the game, they are tending to vent inside the game as well, with players banding together, or at other events such as virtual protests. So the game’s operator needs to manage a clientele which is demanding, vigilant, at times oversensitive and perhaps even fickle. Aware of the power they wield, communities can desert a game in the blink of an eye. It can be during the beta phase when word of mouth is particularly effective in either building or evacuating a game’s community. This naturally has a direct impact on the organisation created by the operator. Servers can be emptied, rendered unprofitable and so inoperative in a matter of weeks. As a result, operators are keen to involve the guilds in any changes made to the game along the way, and will ask for their feedback during test phases, since players are the best possible judges of the game they subscribe to. Once captivated, players generally remain loyal to their favourite game. We estimate that, for more than two thirds of them, this loyalty extends beyond two years. But hard core gamers also tend to keep up with the latest news, and do not hesitate to move on to new horizons, with or without their guild. Gamers’ loyalty is now tending to last less and less long, as an increasing number of games becomes available. Games with the most mature gameplay, the most sophisticated and especially the most prolific graphics are all irresistible lures for hardcore gamers, more so than for occasional players. Less experienced than hard core gamers, occasional gamers tend to move from game to game more freely, particularly since the games they choose are less demanding. Because they only spend a short time playing online games, they are looking for a short learning curve, quick advancement through the game and short sessions – and they will be all the more willing to pay to play if these conditions are met. The MMOG gamer community is a unique media phenomenon. It plays an active role in bringing the content to life, in some cases writing the scenario while playing, has a starring role in the dynamic, and contributing more or less significantly to the game’s design, primarily in the test phase. This phenomenon is a result of internet users’ desire to be players in their digital entertainment. The players’ interaction with their gaming environment is a central preoccupation, and they will experiment 2006 edition © IDATE 20 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market with the way the adventures they experience in the MMOG play out. A form of literature has been born of their tales, and is shared on community sites, in forums… On the fringe of MMOG are initiatives that satisfy this need among players to have a part in some of the games’ outputs – one interesting example being The Movie from UK studio Lionhead. In it, players are film directors, and they must write and direct a movie using the game’s built-in graphic engine. Players thus move through the different stages of story boarding, casting, production, postproduction… ending with an animated film of their own making. The community was quick to latch onto this game that lets their imagination run wild. The movies they make are posted to a dedicated community site created specially by Lionhead. Players can watch the films and rate them, with rankings displayed on the site. Lionhead has even organised a film festival around this new phenomenon, called Machinima. In late 2005, a French gamer, Alex Chan, made a 12-minute film of the riots in the suburbs of Paris, which he called, "French Democracy". It was seen all over the world, and had a hand in helping secure the success of this new type of game. Beyond this particular example, self-produced animated content is becoming an increasingly popular form of expression in the gamer community. 3.2.2. Gamer profile Very little data exists on massively multiplayer online gamers in Europe. But by compiling the information that is available, we can nonetheless draw a fairly succinct portrait. From a geographical standpoint, MMOG is particularly well-developed in Asia in a variety of forms, from occasional to immersive to addictive. It is no surprise that 40% of World of Warcraft players are Chinese, compared to only 15% of European origin. We can estimate that two-thirds of MMOG players are Asian, hailing from the following countries: China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. There are close to 7 million subscribers to games that operate solely in Asia, including Ragnarok, Legend of Mir, Westward Journey Online and MU Online. The average age of gamers is 28, with one player in five being under 18. Females appear to account for around one-fifth of MMOG players, but represent 60% of occasional gamers. The average time spent playing an MMOG is 10 hours a week, with the most hard core among them (who represent close to 5% of the MMOG population) devoting more than 30 hours a week to what is clearly a great passion. 3.2.3. Gaming modes Gaming modes are central components in the creation of the community and the life of the game. There are three main combinable gaming modes, each of which corresponds to a category of gamer. • "Player versus Environment" (PvE) or "Player versus Mobs" (PvM) Here gamers spar with threats managed by the server. This gaming mode involves a strong community element. To defeat certain enemies, gamers need to assemble several dozen fellows to assist them, and coordinating these operations can require the involvement of several guilds. Prior negotiations are undertaken to establish how the experience points will be shared by the players or the guilds once the combat has been won. • "Player versus Player" (PvP) Here, individual players go head to head, drawing on their character’s strength and earning experience points through the battles. Players race to acquire greater power and more gear. This gaming mode is not incompatible with the notion of community, but the community does take a backseat to the need to overpower the enemy. • "Realm versus Realm" (RvR) RvR reconciles MMOGs’ community nature, and the need to duke it out with other players. Players travel to a realm and to do battle with players from other realms. This mode involves having both a powerful character and working for the team. 2006 edition © IDATE 21 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market 3.3. Market and industry players 3.3.1. The MMOG market Massively multiplayer online games have been around for over 10 years. The first graphicallyenhanced titles date back to mid-1996 and the game Meridian 59. Their popularity began to skyrocket with Ultima Online (EA) in late 1997, then EverQuest (SOE) in 1999, and subscriber bases grew substantially up to 2004. This growing popularity ran parallel to the growing ubiquity of broadband in households, despite which these MMOGs continue to target only a niche of gamers. A major turning point came in Iate 2004 when Vivendi Universal Games released its first and only MMOG, World of Warcraft (WoW), developed its Blizzard Entertainment subsidiary. This role-playing game, or RPG, made its debut in a very competitive market dominated largely by popular South Korean titles: at the time, NCsoft was the happy publishers of Lineage, whose paid subscriber base peaked at 3.2 million. Outside Asia, the most popular MMOG is EverQuest and its many add-ons. Created by Online Entertainment (SOE) it brilliantly manages to continue to sustain a community of more than 500,000 subscribers. After eight months in the market, World of Warcraft had already attracted 2 million gamers; one year later it was boasting 4.5 million subscribers, rising to 6.6 million in June 2006. Never before had a game enjoyed such overwhelming success in so little time. For a time, market observers had been claiming that MMOGs were aimed at only a niche market, the same observers who later predicted that massively multiplayer online games were poised to become a mass market thanks to titles like The Sims Online (EA/Maxis), which is particularly popular with women, and Star Wars Galaxies (SOE/Lucas Arts) developed under the eponymous licence. Released in November 2002 and May 2003, respectively, these games never achieved the success predicted by their publishers. It is therefore difficult to measure the MMOG phenomenon’s entry into gamers’ habits merely by looking at subscriber numbers. The stunning popularity of World of Warcraft needs to be explained in another way. The Blizzard game managed to attract not only players come from other games, but also several generations of fans of Blizzard games, particularly its real time strategy (RTS) games: Warcraft (I, II and III), Starcraft and its RPG, Diablo (I and II). The turning point noted by market analysts corresponds more to the following phenomena then: • MMOGs’ audience in Europe and in the US is potentially and proportionately as large as it is in South Korea. • The video game industry’s capacity to attract players from the world over around the same content. • Validation of the existence unto itself of a global MMOG market. Our present capacity to measure the unexpected dimension of the niche of persistent universe MMORPG players remains uncertain. It is entirely possible that WoW’s 6.6 million subscribers are in fact that niche, even if worldwide. Even though MMOGs are still largely the dominion of hard core gamers, they are tending to open up to occasional gamers as well. To this end, publishers are modifying the gameplay, in particular in such a way as to allow players to move more quickly through the game. They are adapting their business models, expanding the themes of the games, improving interaction and intuitiveness… More accessible and tailored to occasional play, these games could well appeal to a broader public. World of Warcraft is taking this direction, and is a good illustration of the changes at work. 1 According to the MMOCHART website , as of mid-2006, there were roughly 13 million MMOG subscribers in the West. The statistics presented in this chapter are taken from the www.mmogchart.com website, created on the initiative of Bruce Sterling Woodcock in late 2002. 2006 edition © IDATE 22 1 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market Figure 3: Growth of massively multiplayer online game subscriptions 14 000 000 13 000 000 12 000 000 11 000 000 10 000 000 9 000 000 8 000 000 7 000 000 6 000 000 5 000 000 4 000 000 3 000 000 2 000 000 1 000 000 0 janv97 Total Current Subsciptions juil97 janv98 juil98 janv99 juil99 janv00 juil00 janv01 juil01 janv02 juil02 janv03 juil03 janv04 juil04 janv05 juil05 janv06 juil06 Source: MMOCHART Table 5: Top 30 massively multiplayer games, as of 30/06/2006 Ranking June 2006 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 Game World of Warcraft Lineage Lineage II RuneScape Final Fantasy XI EverQuest EverQuest II Star Wars Galaxies City of Heroes/Villains Ultima Online Eve Online Dark Age of Camelot Toontown Online Dungeons & Dragons Online Dofus Tibia Second Life The Sims Online Puzzle Pirates EverQuest Online Adventures Number of active subscribers 6,600,000 1,497,287 1,302,340 781,776 500,000 200,000 175,000 170,000 160,000 135,000 125,625 125,000 110,000 90,000 80,000 67,397 65,000 35,500 34,000 30,000 Publisher Vivendi Games NCsoft NCsoft Jagex Ltd Square Enix Sony Online Entertainment Sony Online Entertainment Sony Arts NCsoft Electronic Arts CCP Games Mythic Entertainment/GOA Disney Interactive Atari Ankama CipSoft Linden Lab Electronic Arts Three Rings Sony Online Entertainment 23 Online Entertainment/Lucas 2006 edition © IDATE Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market Ranking June 2006 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Game The Matrix Online Era of Eidolon PlanetSide There Sphere Anarchy Online World War II Online The Realm Online Auto Assault Horizons Number of active subscribers 30,000 27,000 20,000 17,000 15,000 12,000 12,000 12,000 11,000 10,000 Source: MMOCHART Publisher Sony Online Entertainment Watagame Sony Online Entertainment Forterra Systems Nikita Funcom Playnet Inc. Norseman Games NCsoft Atari Figure 4: Massively multiplayer games’ market share 1.3% 1.4% 1.4% 1.6% 4.0% 1.1% 7.6% World of Warcraft Lineage Lineage II RuneScape Final Fantasy XI 52.9% EverQuest EverQuest II Star Wars Galaxies City of Heroes / Villains Ultima Online Other 6.3% 10.4% 12.0% Source: MMOCHART 2006 edition © IDATE 24 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market Figure 5: Growth of active subscriptions per game (+ 120,000 accounts) 7 000 000 6 500 000 6 000 000 5 500 000 5 000 000 4 500 000 Total Current Subscriptions 4 000 000 3 500 000 3 000 000 2 500 000 2 000 000 1 500 000 1 000 000 500 000 0 janvjuilUltima Online 97 97 janv98 juil98 janv99 juil- janv- juil- janv- RuneScape Lineage II Lineage00 99 00 01 Final Fantasy XI City of Heroes / Villains juil01 janvjuiljanv02 EverQuest 03 02 juil03 janv04 juil04 janvjuiljanvDark Age of Camelot 05 05 06 juil06 Eve Online EverQuest II Star Wars Galaxies World of Warcraft Source: MMOCHART 2006 edition © IDATE 25 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market Figure 6: Growth of active subscriptions per game (from 70,000 to 700,000 accounts) 700 000 650 000 600 000 550 000 500 000 450 000 400 000 350 000 300 000 250 000 200 000 150 000 100 000 50 000 0 janv97 Ultima Online EverQuest Asheron's Call Dark Age of Camelot Tibia Final Fantasy XI The Sims Online Eve Online Toontown Online Second Life Star Wars Galaxies City of Heroes / Villains Dofus EverQuest II Dungeons & Dragons Online Total Current Subscriptions juil97 janv98 juil98 janv99 juil99 janv00 juil00 janv01 juil01 janv02 juil02 janv03 juil03 janv04 juil04 janv05 juil05 janv06 juil06 Source: MMOCHART 2006 edition © IDATE 26 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market 3.3.2. The players There are currently some 100 industry players involved in the MMOG sector in the West. South Korea’s video game promotion agency reports more than 200 home-grown companies operating in the sector, a handful of which are also present in North America and Europe. Most of the companies involved in developing, publishing, distributing and operating MMOGs are traditional console game publisher, or new entrants specialising in online gaming, and independent developers who handle their games’ publication and distribution themselves, for the most part solely over the internet. Table 6: Top MMOG publishers Publisher Alchemic Dream Atari Development partners Cyberplayers, Gamalocus Studios, HonourBound LTD, Joy City Entertainment Corp. Artifact Entertainment, BioWare Corp., Obsidian Entertainment, Reakktor Media, Turbine CCR Corporation, Codemasters, NHNGames Disney Online Maxis, Origin, EA Mythic Games Adellion, Call of the Warlords, Graal Online, Rush, A Tale in The Desert, Neocron Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, Horizons, Neocron 2 - Beyond Dome of York, Neverwinter Nights (Neverwinter Nights: Shadows Of Undrentide, NeverWinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark), Neverwinter Nights 2 Archlord, Dragon Empires, Rising Force Online, Lord of The Rings Online. Pirates of the Caribbean Online, ToonTown The Sims Online, Ultima Online (Ultima Online: The Second Age, Ultima Online: Renaissance, Ultima Online: Third Dawn, Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge, Ultima Online: Age of Shadows, Ultima Online: 7th Anniversary Edition, Ultima Online: Samurai Empire, Ultima Online: Mondain's Legacy, Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn), Ultima Worlds Online: Origin, Ultima X: Odyssey Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Anarchy Online Marvel MMO, Mythica, True Fantasy Live Online, Asheron's Call I and II Aion: The Tower of Eternity, Auto Assault, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dungeon Runners, Exteel, Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, Guild Wars: Nightfall, Tabula Rasa, Lineage I and II Legacy Online, Phantasy Star Universe, Pocket Kingdom: Own the World, Shenmue Online EverQuest (EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, EverQuest: The Scars of Velious, EverQuest: Shadows of Luclin, EverQuest: The Planes of Power, EverQuest: The Legacy of Ykesha, EverQuest: Lost Dungeons of Norrath, EverQuest: Gates of Discord, EverQuest: Omens of War, EverQuest: Dragons of Norrath, EverQuest: Depths of Darkhollow, EverQuest: Prophecy of Ro, EverQuest: Serpent's Spine), EverQuest 2 (EverQuest 2: Desert of Flames, EverQuest 2: Kingdom of Sky, EverQuest 2: Echoes of Faydwer), Final Fantasy XI, Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising, Star Wars Galaxies (Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed, Star Wars Galaxies: Rage of the Wookies, Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan), The Matrix Online, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Planetside (Planetside: Core Combat) Shadowbane (Shadowbane: Throne of Oblivion, Shadowbane: The Rise of Chaos), Uru: Ages Beyond MYST World of Warcraft (World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade), World of Starcraft, World of Diablo Codemasters Disney Online Electronic Arts Funcom Microsoft Game Studios NCsoft Funcom Microsoft Game Studios, Sigil Games Online ArenaNet, Cryptic Studios, Destination Games, NCsoft, NetDevil Joy City Entertainment Corp., Oceanus Perpetual Entertainment, Sigil Games Online, Sony Online Entertainment, Square-Enix, Verant Interactive Sega Sony Online Entertainment Ubisoft Cyan Worlds, Inc., Sony Online Entertainment, Wolfpack Studio, Inc Blizzard Entertainment Vivendi Universal Interactive 2006 edition © IDATE 27 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market Publisher Wanadoo Interactive Development partners MythicEntertainment Games Dark Age of Camelot (Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs, Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles, Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis, Dark Age of Camelot: Foundations, Dark Age of Camelot: New Frontiers, Dark Age of Camelot: Darkness Rising, Dark Age of Camelot: Labyrinth of the Minotaur) Source: IDATE Traditional publishers Electronic Arts, Sony Online Entertainment and Microsoft were the most dynamic traditional MMOG publishers in the West up to the year 2000, at which time they were joined by Square Enix, Atari, Ubisoft, Sega and Vivendi Games. These publishers shaped first and second generation MMOGs, and continue to offer up massively multiplayer games, with varying degrees of success. Designing, marketing and operating MMOGs appears to be a very different business from the one of developing and publishing traditional video games. Sony Online Entertainment, a Sony Pictures subsidiary, manages less than 10 MMOGs and currently boasts the largest catalogue of its kind. All of the games, for some of which it acts only as the online operator, are hosted on its Station website. The long time leader in the West thanks to EverQuest, it has nonetheless suffered several failures, notably Star Wars Galaxies for which it had high hopes. Microsoft and Electronic Arts apparently spent some time planning their next move before reinvesting in this market segment, which differs considerably from the traditional video game market. In mid-2006, Electronic Arts acquired Mythic Entertainment, the developer behind the popular Dark Age of Camelot, which is operated in Europe by Orange. It is the sign of a new departure for EA in this segment, after the repeated failure of The Sims Online and Motor City, and the interrupted development of Ultima Online: Origin. Microsoft, in the meantime, which is involved in the online gaming market through its Xbox 360 home console is recovering from the failure of Asheron's Call 2. The Redmond giant appears to be abandoning MMOGs for a time, and has sold the operation of Asheron's Call I to its developer, although other projects are still expected to see the light of day in the not too distant future. Up until now, neither Atari or Ubisoft has enjoyed a significant success with online games, despite having been their pioneers. Although offering only a single game, Square Enix shows a good deal of promise and, finally, Vivendi Games seems to have benefited from its rivals’ experience and pulled the rug out from under all of them with a game that has won the hearts of half of all the West’s subscribing gamers. And, lastly, UK publisher Codemasters has entered the MMOG fray. With a catalogue of four titles, the company could well play a major role in the coming years. It plans on adopting a strategy that has worked for traditional publishers up to now in the offline market: drawing on licences from movies, sport, literature and TV, and will be operating the online version of The Lord of the Rings. Like Sony Online with Matrix Online, publishers are expected to focus more and more on licensed products. Those with popular offline video game franchises could well create a version for the web. Electronic Arts tried this strategy with The Sims Online, and failed, but we all know what happened when Blizzard Entertainment introduced its Warcraft game to the internet. Specialised developer-publishers Companies specialised in the MMOG segment outnumber traditional players. Developers for the most part, these firms are struggling to gain a foothold in this market where the price of admission is particularly high. To be able to compete with the most popular games, an investment of between 10 and 15 million USD is needed to design and operate a title. Most new entrants generally have a single game that they develop, distribute and operate themselves. While traditional publishers apply their offline strategy to online, by drawing on their franchises and/or licences, new entrants are likely to continue to position themselves with original creations. Although risky, this strategy can pay off to the extent that MMOGs still have a long way to go in terms of content. The success of Second Life, Dofus, Entropia Universe and Trackmania Nations are all perfect examples of how popular games from small young firms can be. 2006 edition © IDATE 28 Massively multiplayer online games The MMOG environment and market Among the new entrants are also companies that act primarily as publishers. They publish a catalogue of MMOGs which were developed in-house or by third party studios. Cases in point include South Koreans NCsoft, Gravity and WebzIn and Canadian publisher, Alchemic Dream. Alchemic Dream is in fact more of a platform operator than a publisher. Operating online games involves deploying and scaling the servers, ensuring the games’ digital distribution, managing the accounts, collecting subscription fees and profits from the transactions. In most cases, the publisher operates the game, and generally only its own. Although still few and far between, some are developing an intermediation business. Along with Alchemic Dream, Sony also operates titles for thirdparty publishers, as does France Telecom subsidiary, GOA. 2006 edition © IDATE 29 Massively multiplayer online games New development trends and future prospects 4. New development trends and future prospects 4.1. Development of an autonomous economic system Introduction of virtual money, crafting and auctions Virtual money allows players to buy experience for their avatar, increasing its power, longevity and social ranking. Buying experience means buying playing time: if they do not buy the experience, they will need to acquire it by playing. Players can buy objects or armour that protects their character, which would normally be collected during, sometimes long and fruitless, quests. Of course, the introduction of virtual money could be viewed poorly by players committed to progressing through the game without it. While use of virtual money is governed by the game operator, there are also instances of real cash transactions outside their control. This, often underground, market is developing essentially on unofficial auction sites. Naturally publishers are trying to put a stop to these transactions whose income is escaping them, and so creating marketplaces on their game sites, with trade taking place in either virtual money or real euros or dollars, and via auctions. Generally speaking, virtual money enables three types of authorised or unauthorised action: • Establishing the equivalence of local currency and virtual money: a character’s social ranking is tied to its experience. The fact of allowing players to buy experience is meant to attract occasional players with little time on their hands – a population that constitutes an attractive audience for publishers. Generally older, and more numerous than hard core gamers, occasional players’ buying power allows for a certain entertainment budget, a portion of which can be earned by game publishers. Websites like Game4Power allows players to buy World of Warcraft, Guild Wars or EverQuest gold and other items for real money. • Buy or sell a virtual object: a thriving commerce has developed around virtual objects. They can be useful, be signs of wealth or power, or endow an avatar with experience. The objects are spoils from quests or the fruit of a craft developed by the players. Of course what holds true for objects holds true for avatars. Some players have become specialists in creating characters. Once they have reached a certain level in the game, the player sells his account and his characters, etc. to the highest bidder – with some characters being sold for as much as several thousand euros. • Power levelling involves renting an experienced player’s services to increase an avatar’s power, in exchange for money, and/or to help a less experienced player increase its avatar’s power. This type of service is generally used by occasional players with not enough time to go through the steps to allow their avatar to gain experience. Because they are so spread out, it is difficult to get a precise measure of the total worth of the transactions that take place in these persistent universes. Several experts estimate that, for 2004, they could represent as much as 800 to 900 million USD. In 2006, more than 100 million USD in transactions took place on Second Life alone. We can therefore estimate that, with the success of World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, EverQuest II, Dofus, Second Life, Entropia Universe… i.e. games that authorise or give rise to trade around virtual goods, the value of this market is growing at a steady clip. 2006 edition © IDATE 30 Massively multiplayer online games New development trends and future prospects Equivalence and exchange, a gateway between real and virtual Systems for exchanging real currency for virtual money, and vice versa, are beginning to emerge, based on the Real Money Transfer or Real Cash Economy systems. In Entropia Universe from Swedish developer, MindArk, a fixed rate of exchange of 1 dollar for 10 PED (Project Entropia Dollar) has been established by the publisher, with MindArk earning a commission on each transaction. In 2005, it reported 165 million USD exchanged in Entropia Universe, with forecasts for 2006 totalling 300 million USD. Virtual real estate transactions also take place in the game. A 22-year-old Australian gamer, David Storey, bought a virtual island for 26,500 USD, then resold virtual concessions on Treasure Island to other players, charging them local tax. Neverdie, alias Jon Jacobs, bought a virtual space station for 100,000 USD – giving him the record for the largest transaction that has ever taken place inside an MMOG. To encourage the growth of transactions, publishers also propose an exchange of PED for USD at any time. They have implemented a credit card-based system, in partnership with MasterCard, which allows players to exchange their PED and withdraw cash from an ATM. Ultimately, then, this game is focused chiefly on commercial aspects, putting speculation at the centre of everyone’s concerns, and so making the game not so much a pastime as a persistent universe where everyone is working to earn a profit from their virtual goods. Development of crafting As its name implies, in MMOG crafting consists of creating virtual objects. It implies that characters progressing within the game develop particular skills, and allocate a portion of their experience points to enhancing these skills. So, more and more, players are able to learn the trade of carpenter, architect, blacksmith… The crafted virtual objects can give rise to intellectual property issues. The MMOG’s publisher generally wants to maintain ownership of all the goods created within its game. If players were given the intellectual property rights over their creations, publishers could be forced to guarantee this right of property, and could only make this guarantee by ensuring that all of users’ data would be preserved. This therefore implies the implementation of data storage and back-up solutions which are currently difficult to imagine, from both a technical standpoint and in terms of longevity. But the trend could turn around. The publisher of Second Life gives subscribers the status of owner of the virtual objects they create inside the game. Players can take advantage of the skills they develop in the game by auctioning off the objects they have crafted. The money earned on the transactions is used to buy other objects, etc. And so a selfsustaining system is born. Auctions Virtual auctions were initially organised outside any set of rules or framework established by the publishers, who are now taking measures to put a halt to these unauthorised transactions. A number of players have even been banned for these practices which open the way to massive trickery and rogue trading. Aware of the interest that auctions hold for players and the implications for the game’s longevity, publishers eventually elected to create secured auction and trade services themselves. Given the scope of the phenomenon and the burden of managing complaints, some publishers chose to adopt this commercial practice, in some cases by deploying their own exchange system – a case in point being Sony Online Entertainment’s Station Exchange, a secured system for trading virtual goods associated with EverQuest II. 2006 edition © IDATE 31 Massively multiplayer online games New development trends and future prospects 4.2. Other trends and growth outlook Development of console-based MMOGs Up until now, the personal computer has remained the platform of choice for massively multiplayer games. As home and handheld consoles become increasingly powerful and web-enabled, we could well see MMOGs develop for them. Phantasy Star Online was the first for massively multiplayer game for home console, but it is not a persistent universe, and each session is a stand-alone occurrence. Published by Sega for its Dreamcast console, the game did prove quite popular, attracting close to 120,000 players. But it was not until late October 2003 that a true MMOG with a persistent universe was designed for a console: Publisher Square Enix adapted its Final Fantasy franchise in MMORPG for PC and PS2 consoles. For the first time ever, PC and console-based gamers could go head to head. Final Fantasy XI met with significant success, and was reporting more than 650,000 subscribers in mid-2005. Sony Online followed suit with EverQuest Online Adventures and EverQuest II for PS2, while Nintendo released the game Homeland, developed by Chunsoft, for its GameCube. But the real leap forward for online community games could be made possible by “NextGen" Xbox 360 consoles and Microsoft’s Live Arcade service, and by Sony’s PS3, both of which have standard online capabilities. For 7 EUR a month (for the Gold service; the Silver service being offered for free), Microsoft’s Live Arcade allows Xbox 360 owners to access an array of online games, along with for-pay downloads of movies, video games and other game-related content for their consoles. The Seattle-based giant plans to use its service to develop commerce and communities. MMOGs for the Xbox 360 are expected to be released in the coming months, and there is no doubt that it is promising segment. But publishers will need to simplify the business model for console-based players who currently have to pay over and over: for the console itself, for the online service, to buy the games and to subscribe to MMOGs. Sony will also be rolling out an online gaming service similar to Microsoft’s, enabling content distribution, communication between players, and the development of communities and trade. But there will likely be two major differences: first the fact that Sony plans to offer access to the service for free and, second, unlike Microsoft, the Japanese firm wants to have third-party publishers manage the own servers. Sony hopes to hereby provide an incentive for the gaming offer on its "PlayStation HUB" service to flourish, by allowing publishers to choose their own customer business model. Console-makers have always favoured a marketing model based on the physical retail market. In exchange for income from sales, they take charge of producing the games marketed for their consoles. The game is then packaged by the publisher and sold in retail outlets. In light of the stunning success of Apple’s digital music distribution service in tandem with its iPod MP3 players, they are being forced to rethink their distribution model. Acquiring and listening to music is gradually going all digital, and the same will likely be true of video and video games. But console-makers have a lot to lose here, to the extent that they earn on each game produced and sold for their machines, even if they are not the game’s publisher. If digital distribution were to replace the physical product, this could mean serious losses for the console manufacturers. By migrating to digital game distribution via their consoles, they will seek to maintain a certain degree of control over the distribution service that guarantees them profit margins at least equal to those earned on the physical market. As to handheld consoles, Sony’s PSP (PlayStation Portable) and Nintendo’s DS (Dual Screen) are both equipped with a Wi-Fi connection. As a result, both consoles can now host multiplayer games, perhaps even massively multiplayer ones, provided that Wi-Fi hotspots are in place. In March 2006, Nintendo released its Animal Crossing: Wild World, the first ever handheld console game that could be qualified as having a virtual persistent multiplayer universe. In the next two to three years, MMOGs for consoles will provide their publishers with real commercial prospects, before becoming a market unto themselves. Some publishers, like South Korea’s WebzIn (the developing Huxley project) have understood this fact, and are already investing in this type of content. But uncertainties remain: at what point will console-based gamers be ready to adopt this type of game, en masse? 2006 edition © IDATE 32 Massively multiplayer online games New development trends and future prospects Development of mobile-based MMOGs Mobile phones are naturally connected to telcos’ networks, which gives them a sizeable advantage over the competition, namely handheld consoles. Even so, gaming on mobile handsets is by no means comparable to what is available on portable consoles. This is not due to display, storage or processing power, since mobiles are now capable of the same performance as handhelds. The difference lies rather in uses and targets. Mobile phone gamers are generally older than Nintendo DS or PSP players, and their preference is for short, occasional games with no learning curve. Is this audience likely to play MMOGs on their mobile phones? It would probably not be interested in playing World of Warcraft or EverQuest on their cellphone, but it would be entirely willing to expand their mobile gaming experience. As a result, mobiles could provide the ideal complement to the PC – notably in terms of commercial prospects, such as buying and selling game-related content, for accessing community tools and managing certain aspects of the game. For Real Life MMOGs, such as There or Second Life, a mobile phone could replace the PC entirely when players are on the move. The raison d’être of Real Life games has more to do with the community ties that are formed inside the game, than the graphic environment in which the players evolve. So a mobile phone can prolong the community ties and flesh out their dimension, despite the small size of the screen. French company Orfane is working on a 3D online community environment for mobile phones, and could well unveil the very first ever persistent universe for occasional players designed specially for these devices. New trends in the offing • Fully web-based and Flash games MMOGs can be popular despite having no graphics or animation, with cases in point that include Xwar’s Ogame, and Travian. These types of web-based community game continue to attract a large audience. Inexpensive to produce and tailored to occasional gamers, they offer appealing gameplay in a vast array of genres. They are thus capable of reaching a huge public and of converting some players to paid services. Midway between MUD and real time animated 3D games, one of the paths that a great many design studios are taking is developing their mastery of Flash-based games. These games, which are cheaper to develop than traditional 3D Studio Max or Maya-based games, nevertheless demonstrate remarkable graphic quality. The game Dofus, which has received a number of awards, is a perfect illustration of the graphic achievements that are possible thanks to this technology, now owned by Adobe. • Persistent universes outside video games Some MMOG, classified as Real Life games, can already be perceived as evolving on the borderline of games and persistent universes outside the game. The same is true for web-based community game, Habbo Hotel, despite being addressed to the younger crowd and boasting particularly accomplished animation. Another example is Nintendo’s Animal Crossing, which does not accompany players through the scenario, but rather allows them to evolve at their leisure in a universe which has parallels to their actual environment. These titles appear to be creating a gateway between the persistent 3D universe and video games. Persistent 3D universes, whether animated or not, will no longer be only the dominion of video games. They are beginning to serve other, less entertaining but no less community-oriented and/or st commercial objectives. In the early days of the 21 century, French publisher Cryo Interactive developed the concept of the subjective-view persistent universe, Cryopolis. The avatars evolve in a city reconstituted in real time 3D. They can access the different community and commercial areas. In line with its promoters’ spirit, this universe was at once a place of exchange, discussion, meeting and, potentially, a place for selling streamed audio and video content. Virtual screens were placed inside the universe and could broadcast ad-financed videos. But Cryopolis, and Le Deuxième Monde before it, were far too ahead of their time, coming on the scene well before internet users were ready for them. It is now easy to imagine animated 3D developments which could be worked into applications like Google Earth and Virtual Earth. One example is French company I-Maginer’s MyBlog3D, developed with the same technology as Cryopolis. It is a free solution whose goal is to remain simple and userfriendly. It targets a vast public, not necessarily with a gamer approach initially, but users who want to evolve within a 3D customisable universe. Players can create their virtual 3D blogging environment by 2006 edition © IDATE 33 Massively multiplayer online games New development trends and future prospects choosing from a number of themes/decors, selecting and personalising their 3D character, can redecorate and move things around their “room” in real time, converse with visitors either through public or private chats or VoIP, distribute media content (audio, video, photos), even live, post audio comments, organise multi-user games… Video games’ animated 3D universes have a real power of attraction, and are being made available to new audiences and communities outside the realm of games, going beyond a once inert graphic environment. Gateways are being created, and will undoubtedly continue to be in the years to come. MMOG and the mass market • Digital distribution lowering entry barriers Boonty, Metaboli and Trymedia are all companies that are contributing the development of the sale or rental of online video game downloads. But, compared to the music business, the video game market appears much slower off the mark. The digital distribution of video games is confined largely to massively multiplayer game publishers and developers. Restricted by the very high entry price to the physical market, these players, generally small start-ups, chose the path of self-distribution. Aware that their salvation would lie in the efficiency of their distribution service, it became one of their central points of focus. In doing so, they created a trend that could benefit the video game sector as a whole. Other elements, such as broadband’s growing ubiquity in households, helped convince traditional video game publishers to consider digital distribution of their titles or, at the very least, make a free or streamed web-based version available. • Combining payment models As to the payment models offered to gamers, we appear to be heading towards a melting pot of possibilities. The goal adopted since the late 1990s was not to hamper demand, but rather keep up with its evolution. The goal was achieved as subscriber numbers continue to climb, and games are becoming popular amongst a growing swath of the population. Business models have undergone several major changes in recent months, many of them originating in Asia. We have moved from a paid/paid model (game purchase/subscription) to a paid/free model, where subscription fees are tending to be replaced by per-event payments to buy artefacts or weapons, etc. This corresponds to the realisation that it is no longer essential to seek to secure player loyalty through the payment model. Most players remain loyal to an MMOG for around two years, provided it continues to offer compelling gameplay, graphics and community environment. Then came the free/free model, with the game’s operator earning its income on ad revenues and item selling. Per-event payments in fact appear likely to generate greater revenues than subscriptions. They put the player in the driver’s seat in their relationship to the game and its operator. Once freed of regular financial demands, he can devote himself more to his avatar – identifying with it and becoming familiar with the universe surrounding it. Once a certain level of identification has been reached, a player will begin spending money on his avatar the way he would spend on himself, albeit still keeping in mind that it is only a game. Item selling is now on the rise in Western markets as well. This business model will take hold gradually, but could well eventually coexist with more traditional subscription models, and so ensuring additional set monthly revenues for publishers. IGE (www.ige.com), a company specialised in virtual item selling, virtual money and auctions, estimated that the commerce generated by MMOGs totalled 800 million USD in 2004, and predicts on its site that the total could reach some 7 billion USD by 2007. 2006 edition © IDATE 34 Massively multiplayer online games New development trends and future prospects 4.3. Online gaming’s growth outlook One oft-cited line is that MMOGs are capable of attracting a huge audience, and developers and publishers are now investing in this ambition. The market segment is maturing, genres are evolving and gameplay and business models are adapting in kind. But there is still no guarantee that a video game can attract a mass audience around the globe, the way certain movies or albums or even books have managed to do. MMOGs cannot be consumed as quickly, or as fleetingly, as a CD or a movie. They require players to invest their time and so forces them to compete with other recurring forms of entertainment, such as reading or watching TV. MMOGs can nonetheless be called an international medium, much to the satisfaction of their publishers. Massively multiplayer online games are not necessarily localised or customised from country to country, which has not impeded their success. Some games do nevertheless enjoy greater popularity in certain parts of the world, because of their themes, their cultural influences, the need for broadband, or simply the developer’s geographical origin. Ultimately, because of their community component, MMOGs are microcosms of the world – with all the globe’s languages being spoken, and all its cultures present. Independently of culture and language, it is entirely possible that we will see MMOGs enjoying worldwide success, with the young and not so young, in the same way as a blockbuster movie. And, like with film, it is entirely possible that other games will enjoy lesser, but still entirely viable, popularity. MMOGs themes are particularly attractive to a young audience, hungry for quests and conquests and the community nature they offer. But more and more games are moving away from the gameplay of RPG, futuristic and heroic fantasy universes, and delivering equally compelling entertainment, while maintaining the community aspect. As a result, the audience is likely to continue to grow and go beyond current frontiers. Table 7: Estimated PC game revenues (million USD) Europe Japan USA Total 2005 3,133.1 843.2 1,715.7 5,692.0 2006 3,271.3 923.1 1,935.4 6,129.8 2007 3,423.6 975.8 2,171.1 6,570.6 2008 3,587.9 1,055.8 2,467.4 7,111.2 2009 3,777.4 1,113.7 2,811.0 7,702.0 2010 4,056.5 1,184.6 3,277.5 8,518.6 Source: IDATE (August 2006) Table 8: Estimated massively multiplayer online game revenues (million USD) Europe Japan USA Total 2006 371.3 163.1 815.4 1,349.8 2007 473.6 185.8 1,001.1 1,660.6 2008 607.9 215.8 1,237.4 2,061.2 2009 787.4 253.7 1,531.0 2,572.0 2010 1,036.5 294.6 1,947.5 3,278.6 Source: IDATE (August 2006) 2006 edition © IDATE 35 Massively multiplayer online games New development trends and future prospects Figure 7: Growth of the PC game market 4 500 4 000 Million USD 3 500 3 000 2 500 2 000 1 500 1 000 500 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Europe Japan USA Source: IDATE (August 2006) Figure 8: Growth of the massively multiplayer online game market 2 500 2 000 Million USD 1 500 1 000 500 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Europe 2006 2007 2008 Japan USA 2009 2010 Source: IDATE (August 2006) Table 9: Massively multiplayer games’ share of the sector’s revenues 2006 Massively multiplayer games’ share of video game software TO Massively multiplayer games’ share of total video game TO 16.3% 3.7% 2007 17.4% 3.8% 2008 19.7% 4.4% 2009 23.5% 5.6% 2010 28.8% 7.4% Source: IDATE (August 2006) 2006 edition © IDATE 36 Massively multiplayer online games New development trends and future prospects Figure 9: Growth of massively multiplayer game subscribers 20 000 000 18 000 000 Number of Subscribers 16 000 000 14 000 000 12 000 000 10 000 000 8 000 000 6 000 000 4 000 000 2 000 000 0 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Source: [1997-2005 ] MMOCHART and [2006 – 2010] IDATE (August 2006) Figure 10: World video game software market 35 000 30 000 25 000 Millions USD 20 000 15 000 10 000 5 000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Video game software revenue Massively multiplayer online video game revenue Source: IDATE (August 2006) 2006 edition © IDATE 37 Massively multiplayer online games Annexes 5. Annexes 5.1. NCsoft 5.1.1. Vital statistics Company headquarters CEO Creation date Foreign subsidiaries Turnover (2005) Net profits (2005) Turnover (2005) TO breakdown (2005) Sales breakdown (2006) Net profits (2005) Principal shareholder Website Market listing South Korea Kim Tack Jin March 1997 Japan, Thailand, Taiwan, China, Europe, North America 279.4 million EUR 55 million EUR 279.4 million EUR South Korea 54%, Europe and North America 30%, Japan 8%, royalties 8% Lineage2: 30%, Lineage 31%, Guild Wars 19%, City of heroes 7% 55 million EUR Kim Tack Jin (27.44%) www.ncsoft.com KOSPI 036570 (Kosdaq) 5.1.2. Company profile Founded in March 1997 by Kim Tack Jin, who still controls close to a third of the company’s capital, NCsoft has become of one of the MMOG market’s top players thanks to the success of games such as Lineage 1 and 2. The company is particularly successful in South Korea where it controls 50% of the market while, on a global scale, Lineage 1 and 2 are the second and third most popular MMOG. But NCsoft is now working to beef up its presence in the United States by installing a studio there devoted entirely to the American market. In Asia, the company is focusing increasingly on the Chinese market where it recently created a subsidiary. NCsoft’s business model is based essentially on monthly subscriptions in developed countries, and on prepaid cards in developing nations. Its games can be downloaded off the internet, in exchange for a subscription. With a line-up of five online games, which have a combined base of 5 million active players, and three more games under development, NCsoft plans on becoming a powerful market leader. 2006 edition © IDATE 38 Massively multiplayer online games Annexes 5.1.3. Product description • Lineage Lineage is the cornerstone of NCsoft’s catalogue, endowing the company with a 12% share of the MMOG market. Launched in September 1998, Lineage is a medieval fantasy, massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) in isometric 3D, similar to Diablo II. Players can be elves, knights, witches… with the game operating in classic RPG mode, immersing gamers in a world of heroic fantasy akin to the Lord of the Rings or Dungeons & Dragons, requiring them to slay monsters and chase after loot to earn life points or added powers. Players can fight duels and join clans. Lineage has a base of 4 million subscribers, the bulk of them in South Korea, which is outnumbered only by the Word of Warcraft community. • Lineage 2 Launched in October 2003 in South Korea and in 2004 in the US, Lineage 2 is a dynamic 3D version of Lineage, offering more possibilities in terms of game style, options and the heroes’ abilities. In March 2006, Lineage 2 was reporting 1.3 million subscribers, after having peaked at 2.5 million in the first half of 2005. • Guild Wars Guild Wars is a series of competitive online role-playing games (CORPG) developed by ArenaNet and distributed by NCsoft, of which the first was released worldwide in October 2005. ArenaNet plans to release a new chapter every six months, with Chapter 2 having become available in April 2006 and Chapter 3 planned to be released in late 2006. Each chapter can be played either independently or in combination with previous ones, in the same way as City of Villains/City of Heroes which are also NCsoft publications. The focus in this RPG is on players’ ability more than on time spent playing. Guild Wars had 1.49 million subscribers in March 2006. • City of heroes Published by NCsoft, City of Heroes was developed by the Cryptic studio, and was released in 2004 in the US and in February 2005 in Europe. This game goes outside the heroic fantasy realm, moving into the world of comics and arcade games, and aimed chiefly at the American market. It allows players to play a superhero like the ones found in American comic books. The action takes place in the fictitious US town of Paragon City, which is divided into more or less dangerous neighbourhoods, depending on the hero’s level. There is an add-on available, called City of Villains, which follows the same concept but where players are villains instead of heroes. The games had a combined base of 183,000 subscribers in March 2006. • Games in development Tabula Rasa is one of the most anticipated games, and scheduled for release in late 2006. It is set in a science fantasy world and combines first person shooter and role-playing. Aion will be available in Q3 2006, and is promising to revolutionise the interaction between players: “The effect of each unique action will eventually accumulate to trigger new game content such as the opening of new dungeons or the rise of a world completely different to what was there before”. 2006 edition © IDATE 39 Massively multiplayer online games Annexes 5.2. Vivendi Games 5.2.1. Vital statistics Company headquarters CEO Creation date Main subsidiaries Turnover (2005) Net profits (2005) TO breakdown (2005) Sales breakdown (2006) Principal shareholder Website Market listing Staff France René Pénisson March 1997 Sierra, Blizzard Entertainment, Radical, Massive entertainment, Swordfish studios, High Moon studios 641 million EUR 41 million EUR Asia-Pacific 14%, North America 53%, Europe 33% Online 49%, console 27%, PC 17%, Handheld 7% Vivendi Universal (100%) www.vugames.com FR0000127771 – VIV 1,800 5.2.2. Company profile Vivendi Games is the Vivendi subsidiary that develops, publishes and distributes video games. VG is the world’s fifth largest video game publisher, and the leading publisher of MMOG. It is made up of several major studios, including Sierra and Radical. In the area of MMOG, its chief subsidiary is Blizzard – creator of World of Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo. Blizzard is involved primarily in designing MMORPG, and its Word of Warcraft is the most popular in the world, boasting 6 million active players. Blizzard’s business model is based on two revenue streams: game sales in retail outlets (30 EUR a piece in the West) and a monthly subscription of around 15 EUR. In Asia (China, South Korea and Taiwan), because most of the gaming is done in games rooms, revenues are distributed between the purchase of a card, worth 5 EUR, and an either monthly or hourly subscription. Instead of developing new games, Blizzard plans on basing its future releases on its three existing universes, Warcraft, Diablo and Starcraft, gradually creating add-ons and new universes for them. 5.2.3. Product description • World of Warcraft World of Warcraft is an MMORPG developed by Blizzard Entertainment. The world of Warcraft is a medieval fantasy universe which was introduced by Warcraft via Orcs & Humans in 1994, and the RPG Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment regularly releases add-ons which are compatible with the rest of the levels, in a bid to expand the game’s lifecycle, and remain the globe’s most popular MMOG: in March 2006, World of Warcraft was reporting a base of more than 6 million active players. 2006 edition © IDATE 40 Massively multiplayer online games Annexes 5.3. Electronic Arts 5.3.1. Vital statistics Company headquarters CEO Creation date Main subsidiaries Turnover (2005) Net profits (2005) TO breakdown (2005) Principal shareholders Website Market listing Staff The US – Redwood city , California Lawrence F. Probst III, 1982 EA SPORTS; EA SPORTS BIG, EA, POGO 3.129 billion USD 504 million USD North America 54%; Europe 39%, Asia-Pacific 5% Institutional www.eagames.com NASDAQ: ERTS 7,200 5.3.2. Company profile Founded in 1982, EA Games is the world’s leading video game publisher, and responsible for titles such as NBA Live, FIFA Football, The Sims and Medal of Honor. It is nonetheless worth noting that, like many of its counterparts, EA overlooked the MMOG sector for a long time, focusing instead on PC and console games. The company has adopted a global strategy for its development activities, with studios in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Orlando, Chicago, Vancouver, Montreal, London, Stockholm, Tokyo and Shanghai. EA is responsible for only two of the world’s top 20 MMOGs: Ultima Online and The Sims Online. Nevertheless, in a bid to increase its share of this lucrative market, EA took over Mythic studios, which was behind the popular MMOG, Dark Age of Camelot and which will soon be releasing the muchawaited MMORPG, Warhammer. Mythic has a fairly classic business model of game purchase plus subscription, as do all of EA’s online games. 5.3.3. Product description • Dark Age of Camelot Created by Mythic 2001, this MMORPG plunges players in a combat between three legendary kingdoms. One is populated by mythical Nordic creatures (Midgard), the second by elves and fairies (Hibernia) and the third by characters from the time of King Arthur (Albion). In this realm of medieval fantasy, members of the three kingdoms battle for fortresses and relics which bring them powers and glory. Like World of Warcraft, Mythic has released add-ons almost every year in a bid to prolong the game’s lifecycle. Dark Age of Camelot has a current base of 100,000 active players. • Ultima Online Created in 1997 by EA subsidiary, Origin Systems, Ultima Online is considered the pioneer in popular MMOGs. Like with most massively multiplayer online role-playing games, the action takes place in a medieval fantasy universe. The game has been expanded with seven add-ons since 1997, and is still going strong with 157,000 active players in March 2006. 2006 edition © IDATE 41 Massively multiplayer online games Annexes • Games under development Warhammer is one of the most widely-anticipated projects, and one of the reasons for EA’s takeover of Mythic. It is one of the first MMORPGs available for console (the Xbox 306), which will open the doors on a new mass market. 5.4. Sony Online 5.4.1. Vital statistics Company headquarters CEO Creation date Studio de development Principal shareholders Website Market listing USA, San Diego, California John Smedley 1995 Austin, Seattle, San Diego, Taiwan Institutional http://www.station.sony.com/en/ SNE 5.4.2. Company profile Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is the Sony subsidiary dedicated entirely to developing MMOGs. SOE is known for games such as EverQuest 1 and 2 and Star Wars Galaxies. Founded in 1995, Sony Online Entertainment’s (once called 989 studios) initial focus was on the PlayStation 1. In 1998, the division in charge of developing online games split from the 989 studios and changed its name to Verant Interactive, and it was in 2000 that SOE took control of Verant Interactive, following the success of EverQuest. SOE is one of the leading MMOG companies, after NCsoft and Vivendi Games, thanks to three games which have a combined base of 600,000 players. After having produced a series of add-ons for EverQuest and a spin-off of the MMOG for PS2 and PC, SOE co-published Vanguard Saga of Heroes, created by Sigil Games, a company created by the former director and founder of SOE. SOE has a relatively innovative business model. In addition to the usual subscription (10 EUR/month for EverQuest) plus game purchase, Sony has created an auction service that allows players to buy and sell the characters they have developed, along with land and other goods. 5.4.3. Product description • EverQuest EverQuest is an MMORPG released in 1999, and which was second only to Ultima online. The game takes place in a three-dimensional medieval fantasy world called Norrath. Before entering the universe, players have to choose their race (human, gnome, troll, ogre, elf, lizard man...) and class (warrior, paladin, monk, warlock, swashbuckler...). The main thrust of the game is to join forces with other players to slay monsters and so gain experience points. This accumulated experience allows players to move onto higher levels of expertise. Beyond that, players have access to a vast world to explore where they can create a dense social network, play a role, become an artisan or become part of a guild. The two versions of EverQuest have a combined base of around 400,000 players. 2006 edition © IDATE 42 Massively multiplayer online games Annexes • Star Wars online Star Wars Galaxies is an MMORPG released in June 2003. Like with most MMOG, players have to buy the game and take out a monthly subscription. It offers optional add-ons that expand the game’s possibilities. But, unlike most MMORPGs, players do not evolve in a world of medieval fantasy, but in the futuristic universe of George Lucas’s popular Star Wars movies and, again unlike most other online role-playing games, players have a great freedom of action, and gameplay is not based solely on quests. Star Wars Galaxies was reporting a base of 140,000 players in March 2006. • PlanetSide Released in 2003, PlanetSide is an MMOFPS (Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter) which puts players in the middle of a war in the future. They evolve in real time in this universe where warring factions battle for control of continents and caves. To play, users must first buy the game pack (10 EUR) and subscribe for 12.99 EUR/month. • Other games SOE has an extensive catalogue of MMOG, including increasingly popular games such as Matrix Online, Field Commander and Frantix, which cover most all the MMOG genres available. 5.5. CCP games 5.5.1. Vital statistics Company headquarters CEO Creation date Foreign subsidiaries Capital Principal shareholder Website Staff Iceland Hilmar V. Petursson June 1997 The UK, Shanghai (China) 2.6 million USD Telco Iceland Telecom, Kauphting Bank www.ccpgames.com 96 5.5.2. Company profile CCP games was founded in Reykjavik in June 1997, starting with a staff of 21, half of which came from OZ Communications. For now, they have only a single product which they continue to develop, EVE online, which is one of the most popular MMOGs in the world. It was originally created by Simon&Schuster which sold its licence to CCP games when it went bankrupt. CCP is now a company with a staff of 96, most of which are based in Reykjavik, and with offices in China and the UK. 5.5.3. Product description Eve online is a relatively atypical MMOG since based on space flight simulation. Players take the helm of their spaceship and travel the galaxies in search of adventure and fortune. The game plunges players into an actual scale world of outer space, governed by a hyper-capitalistic economic system. The game is upgraded every year with add-ons. Another of EVE online’s original features is that there is no sharding or instancing which seeks to break the universe down into several smaller worlds that cannot interact with one another, and which are thus much more manageable. 2006 edition © IDATE 43 Massively multiplayer online games Annexes The game has received a series of international awards, notably in 2006 for best graphics and MMORPG.com readers’ choice award for favourite company. Its business model is fairly simple: users can download a 14-day trial version of the game, then buy a licence for 20 EUR, and subscribe for either 15 EUR/month or 131 EUR/year. In February 2006, EVE online reported that it had 100,000 active players around the globe. 5.6. Linden Lab 5.6.1. Vital statistics Company headquarters CEO and founder Creation date Capital Investors Website Staff USA (San Francisco) Philip Rosedale (former CTO of Real networks) 1999 11 million USD Kapor Enterprises, Catamount Ventures, Benchmark Capital, Omidyar Networks (eBay founder) www.lindenlab.com 31 5.6.2. Company profile Linden Lab was created in 1999 by Philip Rosedale, former CTO of Real Networks. The company has received major financial support from people like eBay founder, Pierre Omidyar, and former EA Games Vice-President, and EA’s former VP of development, Rex Ishibashi, who acts as a strategic consultant. In 2003, Linden Lab released Second Life, a virtual reality game where players are invited to create a parallel life. With the virtual society of Second Life, Linden Lab is one of the rare MMOG publishers to recognise players’ property rights over the content they create to enhance the game’s universe. In 2005, Linden announced the release of a second version of Second Life aimed specifically at the younger generation: Teen Second Life. 5.6.3. Product description • Second Life Second Life is a 3D persistent universe online role-playing game (MMORPG). Players create a second life online where they can explore the world, create anything they want, hook up with other players, fight, steal, build a house of their own design… There are several pricing options available: the basic account is free and allows access to special events, shopping, etc. All other accounts cost 9.95 USD a month: with a Premium account, players are given a plot of land measuring 512m², on which they can build. If they want more land, they have to pay more each month. For 195 USD/month, for instance, they can have 65,000 m² of land at their disposal. Another singular aspect of the game is the ability to buy and sell goods with virtual money: the Linden Dollar. The objects that the players create are protected by Creative Commons licences, and can be traded freely. There is also a stock market that provides the Linden dollars to US dollars exchange rate in real time. Every day, the game generates an economy of 500,000 USD. There are currently 65,000 Second Life subscribers around the world, and 300,000 residents. Aimed at 13 to 17-year-olds, Teen Second Life is offered at the same rates as Second Life. 2006 edition © IDATE 44 Consulting & Research Understanding the Digital World About IDATE CONSU L Founded in 1977, IDATE is one of Europe’s foremost market analysis and consulting firms, whose mission is to provide assistance in strategic decision-making for its clients in the Telecom, Internet and Media industries. 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