Market research firm predicts population explosion for virtual worlds

by William Dobson Jun 16th 2009 at 9:00AM

Filed under: Business models, Economy, MMO industry, News items, Virtual worlds

We all sort of knew that virtual worlds usage would continue to grow over the years, but a new report put out by Strategy Anayltics has given us some numbers to think about -- and they're pretty darn big. They've predicted that by 2015, the overall population of virtual worlds will go from what it is now at 186 million people all the way up to 640 million, or more than triple today's userbase. Here's the firm's breakdown of the populations today and in the future:

"Kids" in this case refers to those aged 5 to 9, and as can be seen in the above table, this group is predicted to grow the most over the years. As for how companies will cash in on all this growth, subscriptions are still listed as one of the key drivers of revenue, but 86% of revenue in 2015 will come from microtransactions -- this equates to a growth from 2008's microtransaction figure of roughly $1 billion, to $17.3 billion in six years time.

[Via Virtual Worlds News]

Tags: growth, kids, market-research, microtransactions, mmo-industry, population, report, strategy-analytics, subscriptions, virtual-worlds

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Venekor said on 10:07AM 6-16-2009

If thats right then it means more easy mode kids mmorpgs :( I think in a few more years us old timer mmorpg players will have nothing... well we have nothing today actually cause they've all been ruined.

torak said on 12:21PM 6-16-2009

Alright Mr Doom and Gloom

Here is what I see

Adult - 11.5 million to 32.5

That's TRIPLE the ADULTS there are now. I would imagine they will have something to play that appeals to them aside from "WoW 2".

digibluez said on 11:43AM 6-16-2009

Time to make a new mmo and get cash...

PeterD said on 5:41PM 6-16-2009

Actually, while the 'kid' category has the largest proportional increase, the tween/teen category is still going to grow the most. The growth in the tween/teen category alone is larger than the entire population of the kid category. While certainly we'll see more kid friendly MMOs, the real market are teenagers (based on these predictions).