In his PodTech 2005 presentation, Ed Castronova, who is one of the world’s leading economists on virtual worlds (not a big list to be the top of), gave some fascinating facts about online games:

• There are 4 gamers to every golfer on the planet
• 1 in 5 people over 50 are gamers
• The opening day of Star Wars III grossed $50m. The opening weekend of Spiderman II grossed $160m. Halo 2 grossed $125m on its first day. Games now generate the same revenue as Hollywood blockbusters.
• Game industry annual revenue is about $10 billion per year. ($7.6 billion is the software component.)
• Hollywood box office sales have been flat for 3 years. Gaming software grew exponentially over the same period.
• More than 10 million people play in massively multi-player role playing games (MMORPGs).
• If you look at the GDP of the world of Everquest, it comes in about $2000 per capita. China currently comes in about $500 per capita.
• In Indonesia, people earn $1 per hour farming gold in Everquest. (Looking for dropped gold and picking it up.)
• According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average journalist makes $47,000 per year. School teachers make $39,000 – $44,000. According to Castronova, the average gold farmer makes $57,000.
• 35% of game players spend more time playing online than they spend at work.

Me thinks the world of gaming is something we’re gonna have to pay more attention to.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 22nd, 2006 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Amusing, Experience Design, Resources . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.