• Ars Technica, Thursday, September 13, 2007 10:30 AM

Massively multiplayer online role-playing games are still in the very nascent stages of development, but the niche genre--which it most certainly is--are set for a sustained period of big growth, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics. The measurement firm says the overall online gaming market--advertising included--is set to hit $11.5 billion by 2011, growing at an annual compounded rate of 25.2 percent. However, by that time, revenues from MMORPGs like the "World of Warcraft" are set to double--while online gaming swells to 11 percent of the market.

Ars Technica says MMORPG growth will come from North America in particular, which lags behind the Asia-Pacific region in both high-speed Web access and broadband speed. MMORPGs take up a lot of bandwidth, and high-speed Internet access is the minimum barrier to entry. Some 73 percent of MMORPG subscriptions come from Asia, according to the Strategy Analytics report, in addition to 74 percent of game sales.

It follows that increased broadband adoption is key to the future growth of the genre. The report estimates that the total broadband universe will double from $665 million in 2006 to almost $1.3 billion in 2011; by then, there will be 80 million subscribers to MMORPGs, while online game sales will swell to 659 million paid downloads. Total gaming revenue, meanwhile, is set to grow from $31.63 billion this year to $48.88 billion by 2011, driven mostly by online gaming and MMORPG growth.

Read the whole story at Ars Technica »