Broadband connections are having a huge effect on the way that people buy and consume entertainment. In fact, DFC Intelligence thinks that by 2014, over 50 percent of global game software revenue will be generated online.
In Asia, the dominant form of online games are free-to-play, where they generate billions of dollars every year. Still, English language F2P represented only $249 million in revenue.
There are several reasons why client-based F2P games have been slow to emerge, notes DFC. However, DFC believes the number one obstacle has been the continued difficulty of delivering a large client to consumers. Game publishers like to talk about having millions, or even tens of millions, of registered users. For DFC registered users is almost a meaningless number. A major issue is a large portion of registered users never use the product because they are not able to get it to download and install.
DFC believes the situation with downloads will improve, and that eventually Western developers will better adapt to methods that consumers will want to pay for micro-transactions. They see the English-language F2P market reaching $2 billion by 2015.
Source: IndustryGamers
