Newzoo has released the results of a new survey that estimates that there are 24 million sci-fi MMO gamers in the Western world, with 14 million in the U.S. and 9.5 million in Europe. Of these players, 84 percent play free-to-play games.
“You will not catch me making any predictions about Star Wars: The Old Republic,” said Peter Warman, CEO of Newzoo. “But I am very curious to see how much F2P Sci-fi gamers EA will be able to convert to P2P gamers and what part will come from outside the current pool of sci-fi gamers, being complete newcomers as well as the subscribers to Eve Online, WoW, Rift or any other triple-A P2P MMO game. With big F2P sci-fi titles also scheduled to launch pretty soon I expect to see significant differences in uptake of the various sci-fi titles in U.S., Europe and emerging markets.”
“Sci-Fi games have been disproportionally under-represented historically in the MMO sector but this research reaffirms our confidence that the appetite for new and compelling Sci-Fi games is not only significant, but growing. To provide for this audience we have two F2P Sci-Fi MMO’s in development, Transformers Universe and Stellar Dawn, so the future is looking much brighter for Sci-Fi fans,” added Rob Smith, VP of Stellar Dawn at Jagex.
