According to a research report, the casual video game market is set to achieve revenue in excess of $1 billion by the year 2013.
The Parks Associates report titled ‘Networked Gaming: Driving the Future II’ outlines that online gaming companies should embrace social networking and community features into their strategies in order to continue the exceptional growth the gaming industry has seen over the past year.
According to their findings Parks Associates commented that social and community features help to maintain core audiences and broaden appeal.
“These features can help companies in casual gaming expand beyond their traditional target demographic of women aged 35-54,” the company said.
The report urges game companies to use social networking and gamer communities as marketing and distribution channels for their new and existing games.
“Gaming has proven remarkably recession-proof, so as companies try to capture subscriber dollars, these offerings will serve as differentiators in a very competitive market,” Parks Associates said.
Parkes Associates also highlighted that these features could also help further the online role playing genre (MMORPG) and build interest in the category and improve loyalty. The MMORPG genre alone is set to attain over 20 million gamers by the year 2013.
The ‘Networked Gaming: Driving the Future II’ also looks into a variety of networked gaming technologies and business models. The report includes company profiles, consumer data, and market forecasts.