This paper aims to collect and analyze statistical data on U.S. gamer populations. In recent years, the gaming industry has exploded. The revenue from the gaming industry amounted to 7 billion dollars in the U.S. alone. Surprisingly the average purchaser of games is 40 years old. About 69 percent of heads of households in the U.S. play some form of computer game.
There are two dominant demographics for any gaming genre, casual and hardcore. They are distinct in that casual players spend a fraction of their spare time gaming whereas hardcore gamers spend most of their spare time playing. Hardcore gamers represent only about a fourth of the gaming population. While they are not the largest source of revenue for the gaming industry, in the case of online games, they contribute most to the spread of a game’s reputation via forum participation. This is not the case with the emerging mobile gaming market where most games are popularized by word of mouth.
The author conducted a study to analyze the potential of the various technologies available for multiplayer gaming. He concluded that UMTS/WCDMA, with its coverage of 80% of the EU population would be the most likely candidate for future developments. With its low packet loss and latency, and the ability for providers to vary quality of service based on subscription, this technology seems ideal for mobile gaming.
It seems that with the expanding capabilities of mobile networks those providers are seeking to take a share of the pc market. UMTS/WCDMA networks are apparently empty of traffic, due to the low general requirements of mobile use. They are capitalizing on this fact and have begun disseminating UMTS/WCDMA routers in the hopes that pc gamers will begin to utilize the same resources as mobile platforms. The author’s study concluded that these technologies would be suitable for genres such as RTS and MMORPG’s, but FPS’s are slightly out of scope. There are also issues with scaling based on the number of players in a game. These issues may be remedied; the emerging HSPDA offers substantially better latencies rendering some of these hurdles obsolete.
http://web.it.kth.se/~maguire/DEGREE-PROJECT-REPORTS/070624-Christian_Westermark-thesis-with-cover.pdf
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