The networked gaming market in Europe is set to be a $600m market by 2001, with around 5 million households playing, according to industry watcher Datamonitor. Most revenues will be generated by games networks and premium games sites, even though they attract only one third of the players. Other findings of the new report, Networked Games and Gambling, are that combined on-line merchandising and advertising revenues will outweigh income from subscriptions and usage charges. The three main sources of income for European networked games will be subscription and access charges at $215m, merchandising revenue at $150m and advertising revenue at $200m. Simple ‘react to content games’ will dominate the television market, Datmonitor said. This is a game that enables the viewer to interact with broadcast television content, such as playing along with a television quiz. The ‘react-to- content’ games market will complement normal television programming and is expected to account for $234m in 2002. Play along television quizzes will be superseded by these new games and there is likely to be broadcast of programs that are meaningless without ‘react to content’ systems. However, Datamonitor believes in 2001, nine out of 10 gaming households will restrict themselves to simple games.
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