1.0 Trends and Drivers for a Growing Market by Michael Cai.
1.1 Current Status People have been playing multiplayer games for ages. From the ancient Olympics to Mah-Jong, an addictive four-player game invented in China 3,000 years ago, and to the parlor games popular during the Victorian era in England, multiplayer gaming has been fulfilling a need for entertainment, socialization, and competition. With the widespread proliferation of the Internet and the growing adoption of broadband service on a global basis, we are experiencing a new age of multiplayer gaming. Text-based MUD (multiplayer Dungeon/Domain) games, which took root on university mainframes during the late 1970s and early 80s, have become the popular massively-multiplayer online (MMO) games. World of Warcraft, the most popular MMO to date, signed up more than five million subscribers worldwide, with more than two million Chinese gamers, only one year after its launch. Its publisher, Blizzard Entertainment, is generating an estimated $30 million a month in revenues.

From the white paper "Whitepaper: The Future of Gaming is Networked," by Michael Cai.

Next: Parks Associates Identifies "Super Buying" Segment of U.S. Consumers Responsible for 80% of CE Purchases
Previous: Telenet, Belgium's Largest Cable Operator, Deploys Intellon-based HomePlug 1.0 Ethernet Adapters to Subscribers to Ease Installations of Broadband and IDTV

Be the first to leave a comment.

Have a comment? Login or create an account to start a discussion.