Online Board Games

2007-08-26T00:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday ---- 5am, 26 August 2007

ONLINE BOARD GAMES

Suddenly, in the middle of the night, the answer hit me ! It even jolted me awake!

I’d been searching for quality Online Board Games for months and months, in fact I’d been looking for Fun Free Online Games for my family without finding anything of much interest!

And what was this answer? There had to be something coming up through Web 2.0 which I’d been looking into lately – it could be an incubator for QUALITY Online Board Games!

What I found, started me down a path of ever increasing excitement ……..

The market for online games is booming

Computer and video games have become very popular. In particular the interest in playing games over the internet is increasing strongly. More than one third (38%) of all PC gamers play games online and among PC gamers aged between 14 and 29 this percentage even amounts to 58%. Particularly popular are card and chess games, strategy and so-called multi-player games.

Multiplayer games are games in which participants play against each other over the internet. 68% of all online computer game players do so at least once a week and 22% even on a daily basis.

Besides online games all other computer and video games fill more and more people with enthusiasm. “Computer games are not a phenomenon of the young generation any more. Even 19% of people aged over 50 nowadays like to play games”, happily said Mr. Manfred Gerdes who is member of the board of managing directors of the German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM).

The survey which revealed the above figures and which was conducted by the Ipson market research institution on behalf of BITKOM also showed that about one third of Germans (35%) enjoy such games. Among people aged between 14 and 29 this percentage even increases to 64%. These games are most often played on personal computers (31%), followed by paddles (10%) and cellular phones (7%). Currently 30% of all households own a paddle, 81% a cellular phone and 77% a PC.

BIG Business Potential!

Accel Partners, the venture capital firm behind social networking website Facebook, is to invest in German online gaming company Gameforge.

The four-year-old company develops Massive multiplayer online games, producing 15 multilanguage titles including OGame, Gladiatus and Dark Pirates.

Accel is hoping to capitalise on "very high growth" in the online gaming sector.

Gameforge has grown a registered user base of 40 million, with an average of 230,000 using the site at any one time.

WOW! What a business to be in!

A ONE Stop Free Online Games of Quality Shop!

Kool-Games.com

Kool Games is one of the fastest growing game libraries in the world, gathering games from all the major game sites into one simple site for the lazy gamer in us.

Check out this game site and get the best of all games. Register and try to beat the top score, become the master gamer! Go to www.kool-games.com and get started.

BUT HANG ON!

Is there a difference in quality you can expect from Online Board Games and Fun Games you pay something for?

The answer appears to be --- Yes …. and No!

Free Online games of QUALITY are really hard to find! Most online Free sites are dependant upon a high volume of flashy advertising to cover the costs of offering their games and this is continually distracting and annoying.

The big problem with monetizing Free Online Casual Games is because so many ARE free yet, quality is generally the same … fairly ordinary and predictable

In order to make money from the small ratio of players who will eventually become paying users, one has to develop a huge user-base of free and loyal players.

That’s why first-world countries such as the US, Korea, Japan and China can cash in on this business model. Countries such as the Philippines and even Australia, still need to work on their internet and hardware infrastructure to build upon that user-base which will eventually bring in the bacon. They are getting there…

Companies such as www.popcap.com have been successful because they give extra value to those who pay - usually by having a right mix of “trial anxiety” where they let you try the game for free and entice you with more game features such as levels, unlimited time, etc. in the full version.

This practice has been emulated by a lot of start-ups. But in this fierce jungle, only the strongest will survive.

To get an idea then of the future, let’s look at what a firm with authority has to say! ….

PricewaterhouseCoopers released the report Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2007-2011. The comprehensive analysis offers a picture of the entertainment and media landscape, as well as in-depth breakdowns of 14 industry segments (filmed entertainment; TV networks; TV distribution; recorded music; radio/out-of-home advertising; Internet advertising and access spending; video games; business information; magazine publishing; newspaper publishing; book publishing; theme parks and amusement parks; casino and other regulated gambling; and sports).

The report is good news for companies in the video game industry, predicting that the global gaming market —measured by consumer spending on games played on all platforms, including online and wireless games, but not counting gaming hardware sales—will expand at a compound annual rate of 9.1% over the next five years.

Stated in hard cold cash, PwC estimates that the video game market will increase from $31.6 billion in 2006 to $48.9 billion in 2011. This makes video games the third-fastest-growing segment of the entertainment and media market after TV distribution (up 9.3% to $250.7 billion in 2011) and Internet advertising and access spending (up 13.4% to $331.6 billion in 2011).

The takeaway is clear: Spurred by the new generation of consoles and handhelds, and by increased penetration of broadband and wireless technologies, the video game industry is ripe with opportunity. "Growth in platforms allows you to hit new demographics," says Stefanie Kane, a partner with PwC's entertainment and media practice, noting that handheld game devices have brought more women into the market, and that the entrance of cable and on-demand TV channels will further widen the base. "There is a lot of unlocked potential."

Of Course, the world’s BIGGEST market for EVERYTHING is the US!

Fun Games are the Most Popular Online Activity in the US

Despite the popularity of social networking and video sharing sites, gaming is the most popular online activity in the US with some 34 percent of adult web users playing online games at least once a week , according to a new report issued by research firm Parks Associates.

Link: http://www.techspot.com/news/26647-report-gaming-is-the-most-popular-online-activity-in-the-us.html

Sites like Yahoo Games and EA's Pogo.com offer users access to a wealth of ad-supported games, where sponsors have options for branding opportunities, and display and banner ad placements.

Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities," said James Kuai, research analyst, Parks Associates.

More on these sites and other important subjects in another article soon .. come back and take a look here regularly for my updates!

Then, how about having your OWN share of this growth and potential!

If the growth is this good, then you’d be crazy not to take a look! I did!

What if we researched Games Online combining Online Board Games …. Social Networking AND having a business with them both! Interested? What if the alternative to ordinary free online games and slightly better (or not) monetized online games, was to actually make money out of them!

Then go to GAMES REPORT and see what I’m referring to!

If you’re still interested in looking for Online Board Games, looking for quality excitement and only want to spend the minimum of dollars to have access to them, then try this ONE STOP SHOP !

More insight on these items and other details here soon! Please come back!