Free to play in Europe
July 19th, 2009
No comments
There’s some great data in Thomas’ presentation on the European free to play market :
- Total EMEA MMO/online gaming market is estimated at 500M€
- 80% of the market is free to play vs pay to play
- 67% of the market is browser based
- Lower ARPPU for freemium games but higher penetration
- Higher ARPPU for item selling games (sometime in excess of 20€ per month) but lower penetration
- Big success of freemium kid-focused MMOs like Runescape or Dofus.
Free to play market is set to expand, particularly in the area of kid & tween focused gaming where it provides a free and easily accessible entry to multiplayer online gaming. Casual MMOs which target youth audiences seem particularly attractive since they are much “stickier” than other more casual virtual worlds.