The Franchise

Just saw the article below over at IGN. It's pretty amazing that online gaming is having an affect on broadcast TV ratings. I'm sure it'll just get worse with the next generation of consoles when more people will jump on the online bandwagon. I'm sure PS2 online combined with XBOX online is making a big dent in advertisers' "target demographic". Hopefully this wont mean we'll start seeing ad's in the next gen of games. Product placement I can take but ad's or pop-ups would be too much!
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March 04, 2004 - One of the most popular new shows on TV is not a sitcom, but SOCOM II: U.S Navy SEALs. Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. announced that the North American online PlayStation 2 community has grown to 2.6 million people. To make matters worse for the broadcast networks, a majority of the gamers were online during prime time hours.


As reported in Sony's own analysis of the online gaming community, the most popular hours for playing online in the month of February were between 5 and 11 p.m., enveloping the entire prime time slot. With 65% of these gamers being males between the ages of 18-34 playing during prime time in a sweeps month, online gaming could be a growing problem for broadcast television.

So what have all of these gamers been playing? The resounding answer is SOCOM II. The average SOCOM II online gamers spend an average of 4.2 hours a day in online games. In the first 100 days of SOCOM II being online, the game logged a total of 31.5 million player hours.

Beyond just SOCOM II, there have been 42 titles that have come out for the PS2 in the past 12 months that have online capabilities. Before this year is out, SCEA plans on doubling the library of online PS2 games.

The effect of a decrease in television viewing is already being felt in the industry. Back in September, Nielsen Media Research reported an 8% decline in the male 18 to 34 audience. Industry analysts have been speculating that online gaming is one of the root causes in this decline.

"When people go looking for their favorite entertainment, some are turning to online gaming with PlayStation 2 instead of tuning into broadcast television," said Andrew House, executive vice president, SCEA. "We believe the compelling content we offer online gamers will continue to drive the growth of our online platform, far outpacing other online gaming destinations and potentially rivaling the popularity of more traditional entertainment mediums like television."

PixyJunket

TV sucks. Maybe that's the "problem?"

funkyryno

No mention of Live?

joshd2012

Live doesn't have anywhere close to 2.6 million users unless there has been a dramatic jump somewhere.

Groucho

When there is no more room in Hell...






THE NERDS WILL WALK THE EARTH!

Outlaw

All thanks to PS2 and X-Box for inventing online games.

I hear that now they even have online games for the PC.

cheapskate

Well it was bound to happen eventually...

I'm sure the PC Game developers are now desperately scrambling to play catch-up.

Groucho

Oh, I doubt that. Where's the online potential for "Solitaire" and "Mind-Sweeper"?

PixyJunket

C'mon now.. a multiplayer version of Minesweeper would kick ass.. just add in little powerups like Bomberman or effects that hinder the other player when you uncover so many blocks, etc like Tetris or Puyo Puyo.. mmm.. man, the possibilites of these games being online if it weren't for the fact that all anybody wants to do now is fire a gun.

joshd2012

PC games are in a rough market right now. Small studios are closing down and revolutionary games are being dropped in favor of proven sucesses. The PC game business is drying up in favor of consoles. I feel bad because a friend of mine is trying to enter the industry and is having a hard time finding a place to start. Consoles are the future of gaming and piracy has a large part of that.

young

are they serious???? 4.2 hours average seems ridiculously high.

Groucho

What an megalomaniacal ass your friend is.

I disagree that the PC gaming world is "drying up." I've been playing PC games since before some of y'all were born, and it's still going strong.

Groucho

I once spent 4.2 hours just trying to get a "sow" in Everquest.

PixyJunket

Personally I've never seen the PC as a huge gaming platform myself. My tastes have always been "Japanese" for games and that's non-exsistant in the PC world. The one advantage I've always thought the PC had (playing online) is now being brought to the console world.

Piracy is a huge problem for both markets though, it's just (usually) MUCH easier to pirate a PC game.

I feel that if Direct X hadn't come along, PC gaming would've died long ago due to the troubles of programming/supporting such a wide range of hardware.

Anyway, just random thoughts.. pay no heed.

Josh H

I still see around 500,000 Live subscribers touted in most media articles on the topic.

No kidding. I watch a lot less TV than in the past, and I don't online game at all. I'd just rather go out and do something, watch a movie, read, etc. than watch 99% of the crap on TV.

That's the main reason for me as well. The genre's the PC excels at (FPS, RTS, american style RPGs, PC adventure games etc.) are just not my cup of tea.

Galanthas

I can't tell if your joking or not heh. I have seen people sit there asking for a sow for about an hour before, when they would have made it to their desitination in that time frame. Nothing you can do but just smack your forehead and move on after seeing that.

young

actually, it is now 750,000+

here's one source.
http://www.gamepro.com/microsoft/xbo...ws/33011.shtml

joshd2012

Whoops... I meant "enter". Sorry about that. *Fixed*. Drinking this early in the day seems to mix some signals.

young

oh, i've had single sessions that lasted a while (although, even then, not more than 2 hours probably....)

but, an average of 4.2 hours a day = 29.4 hours a week (is my math right?) that just seems really high to me. 2.6 million people who play 30 hours of online games a week seems really unfathomable.

joshd2012

I usually go on 6 hour benders when I get on SOCOM II Online. Usually from 8pm to 2am, but that only happens maybe once a week.

Josh H

Averages can be thrown off by outliers (i.e. people far away from the norm). There's a lot of people obsessed with games like everquest and spend nearly every waking moment on them that probably skew the average.

The median (the exact middle point) would probably be a more realistic measure, for the same reason you see it used for incomes in states/countries (being that it's not sensitive to outliers).

PixyJunket

mvc

Until porn is allowed on mainstream television, I don't see this trend reversing.

Lastblade

What do you expect when most of the TV shows are either triteful comedies, or overdone reality shows. I have so many better things to do than watch TV, not counting online (or offline) gaming.

fumanstan

This internet thing is just a fad i tell ya, a fad!