Two studies about the american and european gaming-market were published lately: NPD’s “Entertainment Trends in America” and Today’s Gamers International Gamers Survey. According to NPD, 14 percent of all U.S. households subscribe to online gaming subscription services (August 2009), while the Today’s Gamers survey claims that “MMOs constitute 14 percent of all time spent playing video games in the U.S.“, where of “ the U.S. online population surveyed, 21 percent said they play MMOs. 45 percent of those count themselves as paying MMO players, while 30 percent have spent money on casual game portals.“

Now, I can’t say if 14 percent of all households match 21 percent of the surveyed U.S. online population, but as Tobold points out, the subscription numbers seem to pretty high. It seems to be in ballpark of 15-20 million according to world internet usage statistics. According to the reported age (8-12 years old), my guessing would be that a large number of these so-called MMO-subscribers come from online-worlds like Club Penguin (which is, of course, comparing apples to oranges).

Apart from that, incidentally, Today’s Gamers International Gamers Survey claims that the MMO market share in the EU is around 13-14 percent, meaning that the MMO market in the U.S. is around 60% larger than in Europe. In case these figures can be trusted, I wonder where the gap comes from; is it a difference in credit card- or broadband-penetration? Or the more difficult european heterogeneous market?

Via Gamasutra.