DFC Intelligence estimated that revenue from games will increase from $52 billion in 2011 to $70 billion in 2017. Software, mostly online and free-to-play, for PCs leads the way with 39 percent of the growth, followed by game console systems with 36 percent and mobile devices with 25 percent.
“While the game industry is expanding on all fronts with new demographic groups playing games on a regular basis, the core consumer still remains male, age 12 to 30,” says David Cole, CEO of DFC Intelligence. “In every segment, the key growth factor is improving access and monetization capabilities to that core demographic. Digital distribution, already widely accepted among core gamers globally, is clearly broadening access to products and driving much of the industry growth.”
Working with Xfire, DFC, found out that products like League of Legends, Diablo III and Minecraft have consistently seen as many as one million active users a day. “DFC is the ideal partner to help Xfire analyze gameplay data from our user base of more than 21 million gamers in North America, Europe and Asia” said Malcolm CasSelle, CEO, Xfire. “Xfire has a deep insight into game trends because our app natively tracks the number of players – and hours played – for each title, by country. Xfire tracks the growth trajectory of new titles at launch, including which titles keep a share of gamers’ time and which games get dropped in favor of newer titles.”
DFC partnered with Live Gamer and found out that purchase behavior of core consumers of an F2P game is much like it is for a traditional boxed retail product. “Gamers tend to make purchases several times a year in bulk sums of around $20 to $50,” adds Cole. “A successful game should count on an average paying consumer spending $75 a year for two years.”
Core gamers are embracing mobile games, but are still reluctant to play social games in wide numbers. DFC believes that browser and social network games will exceed $8 billion in revenue by 2017… if they have a stronger appeal to core gamers.
“The bottom line is core gamers spend money on products they like and right now the game offerings on sites like Facebook are simply not appealing to that demographics,” said Cole.
