2004 Web and Downloadable Games White Paper 

IGDA Online Games SIG 

2. 

Selling games online 

Knowing that there is a potential market and understanding its challenges, developers will take the next 

step, which is to assess which products to push. Until recently some portals would have paid advances 

for exclusive games, online or downloadable. But now, paradigms have been shifting left and right. 

Market penetration and customer acquisition used to be king in the late 90s. Then came the wave of 

community building and value added content. As the dot com bubble exploded, portals started to refocus 

on paid content and services. Game developers are perhaps the best suited to take advantage of this 

new focus. Premium downloadable games are another revenue source for web portals eager to monetize 

their traffic. 

J. 

Asian Issues 

2004 and beyond promises to be very exciting for online gaming in Asia, particularly for MMP and casual 

mass market gaming. With the low penetration of consoles in Asian markets (with the exception of 

Japan), PC platform gaming will continue to grow relatively unhindered, unless hardware owners such as 

Sony and Microsoft incorporate more network oriented game services in their next generation console 

platforms. Even then, gaming in Asia, excluding Japan, is heavily oriented around the PC platform and 

will be difficult for consoles to penetrate without dealing with the already rampant piracy of each of the 

markets. 

Unfortunately, at the expense of the growth of MMP and online casual gaming growth, PC CD 

consumption will likely slide, as regional software piracy problems continue and users begin to devote 

more time to online gaming. 

In the opinion of this author, the industry should expect to see most global game players viewing 

northeastern Asia as a key strategic market for online gaming, particularly for South Korea as a core 

consumption market, and Japan and China as potentially larger mass consumer markets with Internet 

and broadband penetration expanding rapidly. In particular the Korean market will be an important 

benchmark market with higher consumption and faster product innovation. Currently, Korean originated 

game content dominates the online distribution markets of Japan and China, which is likely to be a trend 

for several years to come until local online game developers emerge and mature in China and Japan. 

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