According to Screen Digest, subscriber revenues for PC MMOs and multiplayer online games in the U.S. and Europe went down during 2010, marking a shift towards microtransactions and away from subscriptions. Subscription revenue totaled $1.58 billion in 2010, down five percent from $1.66 billion in 2009; that year was ten percent stronger than the year previous and 2008 had seen 21.6 percent growth.
“The 2010 decline in subscription revenue – the first annual contraction experienced by the market since our coverage of this segment started in 2002 – represents an inflection point for the industry,” said Piers Harding-Rolls, senior analyst and head of games at Screen Digest.
Microtransactions, totaled $1.13 billion in 2010 or 24.2 percent up from $909 million in 2009. Overall, the MMOG/MOG market accounted for a 9.6 percent share of U.S. and European spending on all games content in 2010.
“This more than compensated for the decline in the subscription area and caused total Western MMOG/MOG market revenue – both subscriptions and microtransactions – to rise to $2.7 billion in 2010, up 5.3 percent from $2.57 billion in 2009,” said Harding-Rolls. “Microtransaction revenue will continue to rise during the following years, expanding to $1.8 billion in 2015. This will drive up combined MMOG/MOG revenue in North America and Europe to $3.13 billion in 2015.”