Full version games can be downloaded by consumers for a fraction of the cost of the same games off of the retail shelves. That may seem obvious, but the economics driving that model may just now be explained. In his book, “Free: The Future of a Radical Price”, Chris Anderson explains how the falling price of CPU cycles, bandwidth, and digital storage are the Internet’s triple value play that is creating a digital economy that can drastically cut the price people pay for digital assets. Those assets include pc games. Downloading games makes you a participant in the digital economy and can save consumers 50-75% off of the same games found on retail store shelves.
The evidence of this price erosion is shown in UFABET the year-over-year revenue decline from the big game makers. Matt Peckham, in a pcworld article, reported the numbers on Nov. 13, 2009. They showed an 18% decline in revenue for the big game companies. Matt pointed towards the economy as the major driver in this downturn-however a different game category, one that benefits from the falling digital costs, is the online games category.
In a July TechFlash, John Cook reported that online games have attracted 87million visitors, and has grown by 22%, in spite of the economy. It is this dichotomy of market movement that shows how digital products, delivered by the Internet can actually gain market share and grow in total revenues, while falling in cost and heading towards that zero price point, or free. The trick to this new economy is figuring out how to monetize it. Chris Anderson goes into many methods for monetizing this new economy.
For the time being, one of the best ways that I can see to profit from the Internet’s triple value play, is to get in on the download games action.