Gaming

Online Games: What is the future of online games?

Online games are now played for more than 60 minutes a day by more than 500 million people around the world, says Jane McGonigal.

In the United States alone, that number is 183 million.

Ninety-nine percent of boys under 18 and 94 percent of girls under 18 say they play online games on a regular basis.

On average, young people will accumulate 10,000 hours of play when they reach 21 years of age.

That is roughly the same amount of time they will spend in their classrooms.

More than 5 million Americans now spend more than 40 hours a week playing online games, which is the equivalent of time spent at a full-time job.

NPD Group, a financial analysis firm that tracks video game sales, says that the US games industry sold $ 6.71 billion worth of new games in 2012.

The 10 best-selling games of 2012 were:

  1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II (360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
  2. Madden NFL 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV, Wii U)
  3. Halo 4 (360)
  4. Assassin’s Creed III (360, PS3, PC, Wii U)
  5. Just Dance 4 (Wii, 360, Wii U, PS3)
  6. NBA 2K13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, Wii U, PC)
  7. Borderlands 2 (360, PS3, PC)
  8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
  9. Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSV, PC)
  10. FIFA Soccer 13 (360, PS3, Wii, PSV, 3DS, Wii U, PSP)

FarmVille is a very popular agricultural simulation social network game developed by Zynga in 2009.

FarmVille 2 was released in September 2012.

World of Warcraft holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game), with over 8 million subscribers as of March 2013 (Wikipedia).

Another popular game is Clash of Clans, which is a combat strategy game.

Free games, often referred to as freemium games (free + premium), are a business model where the game is given away for free, but the customer has the option to spend money on a variety of game enhancements.

This model has become popular on both smartphones and iPads.

Free games are much easier to download than paid games.

The freemium model seems to be the trend of the future because many are becoming reluctant to pay for a game before using it.

Once a customer plays a game, they will generally be willing to spend money on that game if they find it fun and attractive.

As an example of how the freemium model works, consider the free game Clash of Clans.

The objective of this game is to create a clan, build a village for the clan, and then train your warriors to protect your village from invaders.

You can download the game to your smartphone for free. Then once you find this game fun and engaging, there are all kinds of updates available.

Sure, you can continue playing for free as long as you want and slowly earn virtual “gems” that will help you finance your clan project. Or you can make a purchase via your smartphone to speed up the pace of gem acquisition.

With the touch of a finger, players can purchase a “Gem Pile” for $ 4.99, a “Gem Bag” for $ 9.99, or a “Gem Box” for $ 49.99.

And if you’re feeling really ambitious and want to get yourself some extra swords and ringlets to fight the barbarian invaders, just tap on your mobile phone screen and buy a “gem chest” for just $ 99.99.

The company that makes Clash of Clans (Supercell) raises over $ 1 million … a day!

All from people who downloaded a free Clash of Clans game on their smartphone.

Apple makes about 30% of that, or $ 300,000 a day.

When the ability to buy things is facilitated through the use of technology, wealth is created faster and in abundance than ever.

Also consider that when people play Clash of Clans, they are encouraged to simply press a button to invite all of their Facebook friends to join them, which gives Supercell even more money.

Of course, Clash of Clans is just one of many examples.

Users, fans, and gamers of Clash of Clans (and other freemium online games) generate millions of dollars for companies like Supercell and Apple.

Meanwhile, users get nothing … a big chicken egg.

Does that seem fair?

Shouldn’t users be rewarded?

We believe that rewarding users of online games is an idea whose time has come.

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