The online games business, although already massive, is extra special right now because of the timing. Timing is critical in business, and this market is emerging as the next evolutionary step in online entertainment.
It's about to explode.
The market today (2007) is approximately worth $164 USD per second ($5.2 billion USD annually), and in the next 156 weeks is expected to grow to $412 USD per second – of every minute of every day, and growing.
The average age of game players has risen to 35 and 40% of gamers are women according to a new survey by the video game industry’s trade group, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA).
Among the survey’s main findings:
* 65% of American households play computer and video games
* 38% of American homes have a video game console
* The average game player is 35 years old
* 26% of gamers are over the age of 50
* Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33%) than boys age 17 or younger (18%)
* 41% of Americans expect to purchase one or more games this year.
Parents are also influencing the way their children, rent, buy and play the games:
* 94% of parents are present when games are purchased or rented
* 88% of parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play
* 63% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.
This research highlights that video games are now an important and popular form of entertainment which is appreciated by every section of US society.
The top selling video game of 2007 in the US was Halo 3 and the top selling computer game of 2007 in the US was World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade. ( Statistics provided by The NPD Group)
The complete 2008 Essential Facts booklet is available online at:
EIF 2008 will take place this year move to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre as part of a move to develop the scale and profile of the event which this year includes a number of new initiatives and changes from previous years.
Edinburgh Interactive Festival will feature a major two-day conference programme, an array of networking events, an expansion of the EIF Games Screenings programme covering three cinema rooms, a major public area with gaming features, retail and recruitment sites. Dare ProtoPlay, the public showcase event of Dare to be Digital, UK’s premier video games design competition, will also take place under the same roof as the Edinburgh Interactive Festival and will run from Sunday 10th to Tuesday 12th August alongside the public areas and Games Screenings.
Edinburgh Interactive Festival is the only event that brings together the games industry’s key decision makers from games publishing, hardware and development alongside Government, TV, film, press and other entertainment industries as well as students seeking to work within the creative industries.
International Conference Center is designed to make the event more approachable and accessible for the public and other elements of the Festival. It’s free to the public and is a great way for people to spend some time looking at new games from new young development talent, to be inspired by the Games Screenings, to see and experience some hands–on time with new games and perhaps pick up their first games machine at the retail store.
Now celebrating its sixth year, the Edinburgh Interactive Festival is powered up to showcase the continued popularity, growth and influence of video games. And this year, the Interactive Festival is more synchronized with the world famous Edinburgh Festival than ever, appealing to the press, public and professionals from film, television and interactive media backgrounds alike, offering a bigger event for delegates, more consumer focusing – an overall spectacle for all.
New to Interactive Festival 2008 will be Features, Exhibition and Recruitment areas specifically tailored to cater for the public - allowing them access to the latest games and job opportunities in games.
As ever, the three-day Interactive Festival wouldn’t be complete without the cornerstones of conferences, keynotes, panel sessions, games screenings, debates and more people than ever jostling to get in through the doors.
http://www.edinburghinteractivefestival.com/eif-2008
Multiplay is the organiser of M Festival one of the largest electronic games events in the UK.
The M Festival is one of the most exciting computer and video games event ever to be held in the UK featuring some of the top names in the computer games industry. Experience some of the latest and greatest games for the PC and Consoles.
A cutting edge video games technology showcase. Visitors will be treated to a hands-on experience of the modern games industry like never before, featuring worldwide leaders in video games and technology demonstrating their latest and greatest innovations.
• Biggest industry names
• 3000sqm exhibition
• World Cyber Games tournament
• Just turn up and play
• Latest games and technology
Gamers Paradise is where you’ll find the real hardcore gamers taking part in a marathon gaming session lasting over 80 hours. Over 2,000 players bring their own computers down for the weekend and camp out for a non-stop, round the clock games party.
A sight you have to see to believe!
At M Festival come and try some of the best simulations around. Test your driving skills in our F1 driving recreation or take to the skies in our realistic flight simulator. A fusion of the virtual world and reality has brought video games tantalizingly close to real life.
• Some of the best simulations available today
• Play golf whatever the weather!
• Charge around an F1 track
• Take to the skies in a flight simulator
Adrenaline junkies can get their fix with our outdoor sports activities.
• Quad bike safari
• Junior quad bikes
• 4×4 off-road experience
• Air Soft multi-scenario combat
• Archery
• Laser Clay Pigeon Shooting
• Bucking Bronco and Giant Table Football
• Kids Zone for under 12′
Buy Tickets Here: http://www.mfestival.com/default.aspx
Have a look at the BBC news story “Casual games make serious profits” if you are in any doubt about what a huge market uVme is part of!
It cites the casual games market as being worth $2.25 billion last year, and growing phenomenally.
A large majority of online social networkers have a Facebook account and the numbers are growing. Although MySpace still remains king in the U.S., Facebook is quickly closing that gap, having grown 40% over the last year. Worldwide, Facebook officially caught up to MySpace in April 2008 in terms of monthly worldwide visitors - around 115 million per site per month (source: Comscore).
Facebook Connect is just one example of a new trend. It is already proving more popular than both Google’s Friend Connect and MySpace’s implementation of OpenID. Facebook Connect allows you to login to third-party web sites using your Facebook ID and export your friend graph from Facebook with you.
Through the Facebook Connect integration, sites can access your Facebook account details and friend graph and move that data back and forth between their site and Facebook. For example, people commenting on a blog using the Moveable Type platform will be able to login via Facebook Connect. Their comment will link to their Facebook profile and the commenting activity itself will make its way back into your activity feed. On Digg, another site adopting Facebook Connect, you can login with your Facebook ID and your digging activity is returned to Facebook, too. This will drive your social graph out to places which are unaccessible today, like corporate web sites.
Google’s Friend Connect is not fully launched yet. Like Microsoft and their “Passport” (now Live ID) initiative, the largest source for collecting user accounts is via their webmail. For those that don’t use Gmail or any of Google’s other customised services requiring a login, there’s no value to Google’s Friend Connect because there’s no friend graph there. You would be creating an account to have the sake of the account.
As for OpenID, which is finally making its way onto huge web sites like MySpace, it will still have to overcome the “user education” issue. A mainstream web user will not know what an OpenID is. “Login with your Facebook ID” - that’s pretty much it.
What do you think about this new social web? Are you concerned about privacy issues? Do you see Facebook Connect as having a chance to be the topdog? Or will it be Google Friend Connect or OpenID? Or perhaps all three can co-exist peacefully?
The number of Internet users in China reached about 253 million last month, overtaking the United States as the world’s largest Internet market. An increase of of more than 50%, about 90 million during the past year. China could soon have more than 300 million people using the Internet for everything from news to online shopping. The potential for growth is phenonemal.
By contrast, the United States is estimated to have about 220 million Internet users, about 70 percent of its population, with similarly high percentages in Japan and South Korea.
Even though Internet sites inside China are heavily censored of political content, and foreign Web sites operating there have strict restrictions, online gaming, blogs and social networking and other entertainment sites are incredibly popular particularly amongst teenagers. 70% of China’s internet users are 30 years old or under.
The investment firm Morgan Stanley says that “Online advertising and paid search market is growing by 60 to 70 percent a year, and forecasts that by the end of this year, online advertising in China could reach $1.7 billion. And only 19 percent of Chinese people have access to the Internet. We are still far from saturation. So the next three to five years, we’re still going to see hyper- growth in this market.”
More than 500,000 Facebook users log on to play Scrabulous every day. Sanctioned by Hasbro, the Scrabble application for Facebook has over 8,000 fans. Scrabulous fans are also scoring triple points by setting up 55 “Save Scrabulous” Facebook groups shortly after Hasbro sent a cease-and-desist letter to the application’s makers, India-based RJ Software, in January.
Facebook isn’t saying if the network would eventually remove the game while the lawsuit proceeds but believes that “games are an important part of the social experience on Facebook.
Do you want to Save Scrabulous?
Set in the backdrop of a factory surrounded by cogs and the sounds of machinery clunking and whirring is the latest of uVme games; Blob Factory!
If things get a little tricky then use the spacebar to swap blobs in the dispenser.
There are some very useful powerups which occur at regular intervals and levels. My favourite and the one I find particularly useful is the ‘time freeze’ bonus.
Blob Factory is Live!
uVme’s brand new game, which some think is better even than Fruit Frenzy is on uVme now!
I make no apology for this post being so short, we want to go again!!
We will write a review for you asap, but right now we can’t stop playing the game and just wanted to let you know it is live…
Those of you who love a bit of darts action will be thrilled to know that uVme’s Jumper Darts game has been updated with a new, easier-to-see power indicator!
And better yet, you can now enter a Jumper Darts tournament with an estimated jackpot of £250! Of course, the final jackpot may be even bigger… it depends on how many people enter. The jackpot will be split between the top 25% of players based on their highest tournament score - and the closer you are to the top, the bigger your portion of the pot will be!
What makes this tournament different to the other progressive tournaments on uVme so far is that this one is going to actually consist of three different tournaments running at the same time, for three different skill levels! So, based on your previous scores on Jumper Darts, you will be placed into a beginner’s, intermediate, or advanced level tournament. This gives everyone a better chance at a prize because you will be playing against people of similar ability to your own.
Go on, even if you’ve never tried it before, challenge your mates to enter as well… and see which group you end up in! PLAY NOW…