2004 Web and Downloadable Games White Paper 

IGDA Online Games SIG 

the number of All Star members online at any one time. Yahoo! has not shared any public numbers on 

subscribers to its All Star subscription service. 

This is probably not a question that will be completely answered in 2004. One of the challenges the 

industry faces is who to look to as an example   cable, television, retail PC games, NetFlix? More likely 

the answer will lie in an as of yet untried business model, or hybrid between multiple models. 

2. 

Will Broadband Kill the Downloadable Star? 

There is some worry in the web and downloadable game segment that the increasing installed base of 

broadband will damage the viability of the segment. The theory goes that broadband customers aren't as 

concerned about file size and will opt for the downloadable games in the upper end of the spectrum (100 

MB+) that are beginning to be offered by the major game publishers. 

With over 40%

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 of US households on broadband and nearly all office PCs on fast networks, there hardly 

seems to be an impact at this point. If anything, broadband may be to blame for the decreasing 

conversion rates that some publishers have started to indicate. When downloading a new game is easy 

and consumers have dozens of titles to choose from, there can be less of an incentive to purchase any of 

them. It is unclear if broadband is the major cause, but there is a very serious concern about falling 

conversion rates. 

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