MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games) are taking over the world. Screen Digest studied last year's numbers and found that the MMOG market outside of Asia have reached US$ 1 billion. This isn't really as surprising as it looks for the rest of the world, with titles like World of Warcraft conquering boundaries.

The research called "Western World MMOG Market: 2006 Review and Forecasts to 2011" studied the current economy of the MMOG world, which business models are better, and gives a forecast on subscriptions and revenues up to 2011.

All the MMOGs currently in North America and Europe are collectively currently worth US$ 576 million and US$ 299 million respectively. Of course, everybody can guess the number one heavyweight of the MMOG subscription market - World of Warcraft, which has 54% of the market (translating to revenues of US$ 471 million last year). Number two on the list, believe it or not, is Jagex's Runescape.

The subscription business model dominated during the previous year - getting about US$ 875 million. The other two business models are expected to flourish this year (though maybe not a booming success like the subscription type): in-game items and currency sale and in-game advertisements. According to Piers Harding-Rolls, Games Analyst at Screen Digest:

During the past few years the Western landscape for MMOGs has become increasingly fragmented following the introduction of new genres of game including social networking, virtual pet rearing and virtual world building titles. These new games and platforms have brought with them many new gamers and also new business models that are generating revenue that is largely incremental to the incumbent subscription business.

Screen Digest foresees an increase of subscriptions to 10 million in 2011 and will get a whopping US$ 1.5 billion. Plus Europe's subscriptions will increase with countries Germany, UK, France, Spain and Italy (respectively) at the frontlines of subscription numbers and growth. Along with this increase comes the increase of broadband in homes, online console platforms and an increase in casual MMOGs. Harding-Rolls concludes:

Our analysis shows that the MMOG content pipeline differs from the current commercial climate in areas such as platform support, intellectual property licensing and content origin. MMOG developers and publishers should be aware of the implications of these trends to stay ahead of the market.