Below are the findings of a study by J son & Partners Consulting of Russia's online games market and outlook until 2016. The study goal is a detailed analysis of Russia's online games market, complete with the market structure review and development outlook. The study focuses on the following three market segments: MMO games Social network-based games Casual games Additionally, the study includes a compressive review of the key projects of the market leading players, the main trends in Russia's online games market and its outlook till 2016. Global online games market value J'son & Partners Consulting estimates the 2012 global market for online games to be worth $24.5. The overall market is expected to grow steadily in the period from 2012 to 2016 and reach $33.5 billion in 2016. Sector-wise, the MMO games market will continue to register healthy growth; the growth in the casual games sector will be insignificant; and the social gaming will see a slight decline compared with 2010-2011 but will still continue to grow nevertheless. Fig. 1. Global online games market dynamics, $ bln. 2010-2016* 40 30 20 10 16,4 20,2 24,5 26,7 29,2 31,0 33,5 0 2010A 2011A 2012E 2013F 2014F 2015F 2016F *The graph includes MMO (browser/client based), casual and social network games market data, and doesn t include PC, Mac, network, consol, mobile and tablet games market data. Source: data of foreign research companies and J'son & Partners Consulting
According to J son & Partners Consulting, one in three Russians 56.46 mln will be playing online games of one type or another in 2016. Russia's online gaming audience review, 2010-2016 Fig. 2. Online gaming audience dynamics, mln users, 2010-2016* 60 50 40 30 20 10 21,74 29,34 37,07 41,46 47,04 52,03 56,46 0 2010A 2011A 2012E 2013F 2014F 2015F 2016F *includes MMO (browser/client based), casual and social network game market data, and doesn t include PC, Mac, network, consol, mobile and tablet games market data. Source: J son & Partners Consulting According to J'son & Partners Consulting, Russia's online and offline gaming audience will both continue to grow, driven by the increasing popularity of digital forms of entertainment and the growing perception of video gaming as a quality leisure pursuit. Nowadays, the popularity of online games both casual and social network-based is no longer limited to younger audiences (students and teenagers) as more and more adults jump on the bandwagon. It's the general increase in the consumption volume of digital entertainment that will account for the lion's share of the future rapid growth of the video game industry. According to J'son & Partners Consulting experts, Free-to-Play* games will account for the majority of the games in the Russian market, reflecting the ever-increasing popularity of this model across all online games segments. *Free-to-play (Free2play F2P, FTP) is a business model in which a product is offered free of charge while a fee is charged for users to access premium features and virtual goods. Social network-based games currently lead the Russian market in terms of online player numbers, with an estimated 40% market share in 2011-2012. The list of the country's leaders in this segment includes: Mail.Ru, Social Quantum and API Tech. A forecast by J'son & Partners Consulting experts sees the social network-based gaming cede its dominant position in 2012-2016 to MMO games, which they expect to account for 60% of the online games market. Currently the MMO games segment is dominated by Mail.Ru, Innova Systems and Wargaming.net.
Russia's online games market value Fig. 3. Russia's online games market value, 2010-2016 *includes MMO (browser/client based), casual and social network game market data, and doesn t include PC, Mac, network, consol, mobile and tablet games market data Source: J son & Partners Consulting The growth of Russia's MMO games market, which is dominated by Mail.Ru, Innova Systems, Nival and NIKITA ONLINE, is expected to continue unabated also in 2012-2016. This market was recently given a major boost in the form of the World of Tanks project from game developer Wargaming.net, which is widely credited for attracting a new, hitherto inexperienced at MMO games audience of mostly males and women over 27. The stable growth of the casual games market is also expected to continue until 2016. This segment is dominated by two companies Alawar Entertainment and Nevosoft. According to J son & Partners Consulting, the value of Russia's online games market (MMO, casual and social network-based games) will reach $950 mln in 2012. Russia's MMO games market key trends, 2012 emergence of new, innovative projects; development of client/browser based games of the Free-to-Play category; growing popularity of session-based games where players take part in gaming sessions of short duration; declining piracy due to the growing popularity of Free-to-Play games; launch of projects targeting not only Russian but also international audiences.
Russia's social network games market key trends, 2012 Migration of games developers to mobile projects Emergence of cross-platform productsemergence of casual MMO games Growing popularity of the Free-to-Play model The key 2012 trend is the growing number of newcomers to online gaming. This trend is particularly pronounced in the social network games segment. FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Pavel Ermolich Commercial Director Pavel@json.ru www.json.ru This information bulletin has been prepared by J'son & Partners Consulting Co. We make every effort to ensure that information and forests contained in our market reviews are accurate and up-to-date. J'son & Partners Consulting reserves the right to revise the data following the publication of new official information by certain market players. Table of Contents (full version) Russia's online games market, 2010-2016 1. Introduction 2. Sources and methodology 3. Subject of study 4. Online games classification 4.1. MMO games 4.1.1.Client and browser based MMO games 4.1.2. Free-to-Play and subscription games 4.2. Social network-based games 4.3. Casual games 4.4. Casual, regular and hardcore gamers 4.5. Russia and CIS online games classification specifics 4.6. Mobile games brief overview 5. Global online games market 6. Russia's online games market overview 6.1. Russia's social network-based games market 6.2. Russia's MMO games market 6.3. Russia's casual games market
7. Segment-wise online games market development trends: MMO, casual, social network-based games. Key trends and outlook, 2010-2016 7.1. Increase in the number of active online gamers 7.2. MMO gaming audience dynamics 7.3. Casual gaming audience dynamics 7.4. Social network gaming audience dynamics 7.5. Online games market size and outlook until 2016 8. Trends established among market participants 8.1. MMO games 8.2. Social network-based games 8.3. Casual games 8.4. ARPU trends 8.5. Gaming content development trends 8.6. Distribution trends 8.7. Software development trends 9. Online games technological development 10. Online gamer demographics 10.1. MMO gamer age and gender distribution 10.2. Casual gamer age and gender distribution 10.3. Social network gamer age and gender distribution 10.4. Online gamer demographics outlook 11. Competition in the online games market 11.1. Russia's online games market key players 11.2. Major projects online market share 11.3. Online games market key players' revenue 12. Online games business models, value chain 13. Top 10 in each online games segment 14. Conclusion
List of figures: Figure 1. Online games chart Figure 2. Online games classification Figure 3. MMO games commercialization models Figure 4. Behavior-wise gamer classification Figure 5. Online games geography Figure 6. Global online games market dynamics, $ bln, 2010-2016 Figure 7. Global online gaming audience dynamics, mln, 2010-2016 Figure 8. Russia's online games market dynamics, $ mln, 2010-2016 Figure 9. Russia's MMO games market dynamics, $ mln, 2010-2016 Figure 10. Russia's casual games market dynamics, $ mln, 2010-2016 Figure 11. Segment-wise online gaming audience distribution, mln users, 2010-2016 Figure 12. Online games market value by sector, 2012 and 2016 Figure 13. Russia's online games market ARPU dynamics, $ mln, 2010-2016 Figure 14. MMO gamer age distribution, 2012 Figure 15. Casual gamer age distribution, 2012 Figure 16. Social network gamer age distribution, 2012 Figure 17. Online games market key participants Figure 18. Online games value chain Figure 19. Games localization profit distribution Figure 20. MMO games by payment system Figure 21. Casual games by payment system Figure 22. Social network-based games by payment system List of tables: Table 1. Client and browser based games strengths and weaknesses Table 2. Casual and hardcore gamer comparison Table 3. Generations of social network games in Russia Table 4. Russia's casual games developers Table 5. Russia's social network games developers and publishers Table 6. Russia's MMO games publishers Table 7. Russia's MMO games publisher market share Table 8. Rating of Russia's MMO market players Table 9. Rating of Russia's social network games market players Table 10. Rating of Russia's casual games market players Table 11. Russia's MMO games developers Table 12. Russia's major social network games projects Table 13. Russia's major casual games projects