Trends and facts about the gaming market and its status 2012. The talk was held on Quo Vadis 2012 in April in Berlin, Germany

1. PC gaming is dead!
Now wait a second …
By Teut Weidemann, please do not share without permission – teut986@gmail.com

2. Who am I: Teut Weidemann
• Working on Games since 1981
• Professional since 1987
• Over 70 titles on C64, Amiga, Atari ST, PC, Consoles, Online
…
• Specialised since 1997 on online games
• Jobs: Graphic Artist, Programmer, Designer, Development
Director, CEO, CTO
• Now Senior Online Games Supervisor @ Ubisoft Blue Byte
• Also teacher for IM at Film Academy Ludwigsburg
• Companies: Rainbow Arts, Softgold, Lucasfilm
Games, Microsoft, Wings Simulations, Jowood, CDV, Ubisoft

3. Teut‘s Oldies … 1987-1990
Katakis, Denaris, Turrican, Spher
ical, X-Out, MUDS, R-
Type, Rock’n Roll, 60 more

4. My „Serious Games“ phase …
And some more …

5. Teut‘s Classics … 1997-2009
And 20+ more

6. New … 2010 - ????
TheSettlersOnline.com www.nadirim.com
 Nadirim MMO RPG for Digital Reality/Docler in Hungary
 The Settlers Online for Blue Byte Ubisoft
 Both free to play
 Both browser based, Flash/Flex ‘client’
 + X unannounced titles by Blue Byte Ubisoft
 Listen to Chris & Benedikts talk tomorrow!

8. The Settlers Online

9. In 2006 I forecasted
From my talk „Supermodells and Computer
Games“ on this conference:
• In 5-10 years PC single player games will be a
niche market
• MMOG‘s will be mass market on all formats
(PC, Console, Mobile, PDA's, ipods)
-> The single player PC market is dying (finally!)

10. The PC is dead
Jim!
4 times now?

11. The mid 90’s War (1994-1996)
Ps1 – N64 - Saturn CD-Rom + 3Dfx hardware

12. The mid 2000 War (2000-2002)
Ps2 – Gamecube - XBox Internet + Team based online

13. The 2005 War (2005-2007)
Ps3 – Xbox 360 - Wii MMO’s + Online + 1st f2p’s

14. The 2012 War (2012-2014)
Ps4? – Xbox 720? - WiiU Social Games + f2p
?
?

15. But is that all?
Did nothing else change?
Lets review the past couple of months

16. Minecraft
•Single person mega hit – who would have thought?
•The only game Lego got worried about
•Gave his 2011 money to his employees
•25m downloads
•80 million US$ in sales
•Shows clearly the Indie trend & power
•Note: this is from Scandinavia

17. World of Tanks
•Free to play
•20+ million registered users
•Over 500.000 PCU – after only 2 years
•20-25% Conversion Rate
•Making 10+ Million US$ - per month
•Note: this was a small developer before WoT
•Note²: this is from Russia

18. League of Legends by Riot games
(owned by Tencent)
•Free to play
•33m+ registered users
•11.5m MAU, 4.2m DAU
•1.3m PCU (500k PCU in China)
•10.5m hours game play per day
•#1 game in Korea (yes, it beat SC!)
•This game will beat WoW this year!
•And is made by “fans”

19. Years of Cyber Warfare
•Sony hacked
•Hacks & DOS vs.
Gamigo, Computec, Police, CIA, IFPI, Department of
Justice, WoW, Fox News etc
•Lieferheld.de DOS‘s Lieferando (thats Pizza!)
•Shows vulnerability of the digital age

20. Angry Birds
•700m+ downloads
•200m daily active users
•10 billion ads served per month
•17m fans on Facebook
•AB Rio sold 1.6m on first day
•2 Theme parks opening soon
•Movie, TV, Plush toys, T-Shirts, making millions/m
•Wtf, AB Space was launched on the ISS!
•Angry Birds will beat Mario this year

21. Draw Something
•35m downloads
•15m daily active users
•250.000 US$ revenue – per day!
•Sold for 200m fucking US$ to Zynga

22. Who gave this man 3m US$ to play with?
Kickstarter
•Crowd funding is here
•Pre Release customer involvement
•Without need of a publisher
•Without licking investors
•Currently Retro trend
•Anything can be funded
• even Chris H’s Turrican Music

23. iPad – tablet computing
•Sold more first weekend than 3DS lifetime
•Destroyed Netbooks
•Destroys notebook market share
•Power of an Xbox360 on 8h battery
•This is a gaming device*

24. Digital Publishing - Finally here
•Steam has 70% core market share
•40m users
•Vavle founder is Forbes top 500 now
•EA opens Origin
•Amazon opens digital downloads
•App store largest mobile digital store of the
world
•App Store makes 4b per quarter revenue

25. 1.000.000.000

26. Digital Age drives people
•Fastest growing political party in Germany
•13% would vote for them now
•The “Greens” taught Germany ecological
thinking
•The “Pirates” will teach Digital thinking
•The digital age has reached everyone

27. What comes next?
Analyzing Market Situation

28. Situation: Video Games
• Declining Revenue
• Current Generation shows age:
6 years
• New consoles announced
• “Consoles are dead”?
– Really?
• Normal “revenue hole”
between console cycles
• But will they compete? *NPD Data US annual sales in billion US$

29. Situation: Video Games
• Investors not confident in
the future of large
publishers
• Sony/Microsoft show
losses since 10 years in
• “Move” continued? console division
• “Online Games”? • Nintendo in trouble
• Set Top Box? • Retail prices dropping
– Xbox usage already there • Retail chains in trouble
• Next Gen online only?
*from Ben Cousins GDC 2012 talk

30. Situation: PC Games*
• Social Games: Investors • FB: 483m DAU, 50%
moved off already gaming
• AAA title sales low • Piracy?
• F2p at its peak? • Will f2p kill retail?
• Indies – second coming? • Can we repeat Minecraft?
• Can next Gen steal • Is the iPad a threat?
MMO’s?
• Does Retail die? • Digital Download
compensates
*Games running on personal computers

31. Situation: Publishers 2008
Company age in years
*from Ben Cousins GDC 2012 talk

32. Situation: Publishers 2012
*from Ben Cousins GDC 2012 talk

35. What changed?
Attackers of the market

36. Social Games
• Facebook Games are in 2nd • In Japan: The top Social
Generation companies revenue is larger
– 3rd gen: Core games coming than the total console market
• Facebook has 901m MAU • In Japan top social games are
– Get this? Nearly 1.000.000.000!! on mobile!
• 50% login daily – to play • Don’t forget the other top
• FB did 1.058b revenue social networks
Q1/2012 – vKontakte (RU)
– Renren (CN)
• FB gaming is still in its infancy
– Zing (VN)
– CyWorld (KR)
– Wretch (TW)
– Mixi (JP)

37. Free to Play
• Major trend on all • Browser Games =EU
platforms* • Browser Games in USA=FB
– Minus console • FB ≠ BG ≠ Client
• F2p iOS revenue is larger
than app sales revenue
• F2p on PC will soon be is +100%
AAA quality
• Can $59 retail compete? 14,2 28,4
2010 2015
WorldWide Online Market
*Source: PWC market forecasts

38. Smartphones
Fastest growing consumer
technology in human
history
Primary Internet Access
Point for major
countries (Asia)
(40% of all Smartphone activations are
coming from China)
Games most popular

39. iGaming*
These are gaming devices
315 million iOS devices sold
Most Popular Categories
1. Games (105292 active Apps)
2. Books (61967 active Apps)
3. Entertainment (61009 active Apps)
4. Education (58789 active Apps)
5. Lifestyle (50123 active Apps)
17% of all active apps are games
74% of top 100 grossing apps are games
PWC forecasts “Wireless Gaming” will
double until 2015

40. Market forecasts
WHAT DOES THIS CHANGE?

41. The future games market?*
*In Audience size, not revenue
iOS
350 million
“Social” Gaming
PC f2p 1 billion
500 million*
AAA
Console
60m
Dead: Handheld

42. The future games market revenue?*
*Wild Teut estimates
“Social”
1000m
Gaming
iOS
300m
“Reach”
PC f2p
200m
AAA
60m Console
$0.50 $15 $30 $60
“ARPU”

43. Is the PC dead?
“Social” AAA
iOS PC f2p
Gaming Console
A report from the PC Gaming Alliance The PCGA noted that free-to-play games
(PCGA) suggests the industry is alive and (ironically) produced a sizeable portion of the
kicking with record software sales of
$18.6 billion in 2011, a 15% increase over PC* revenue, with Zynga reporting $1.1 billion
alone. Chinese outfit Tencent specializes in
2010. That's partly attributed to free-to-play titles and when 2011's figures are
China, which is growing nearly twice as fully crunched, it's expected to surpass
fast as the global market, generating $6 Activision Blizzard as the company which
billion for a 27% jump on-year generates the most revenue from PC games

44. Long live the PC! Errr sort of … oh lolz

45. Options stated are my own, not to be connected in any way with any of my clients
Contact: Teut986@gmail.com
QUESTIONS?