Engineering EverQuest
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EverQuest and its sequel, EverQuest II, are at the hard-core end of a $5 billion online gaming spectrum that includes games like Blizzard Corp.'s World of Warcraft and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.'s The Matrix Online. At the opposite extreme of this spectrum are casual games such as poker and bingo. The people most devoted to EverQuest and its kind who spend nearly as much time gaming as they do sleeping are a minority of online gamers, making up about 35 percent of the total in 2003, according to game industry market research firm DFC Intelligence, in San Diego. But it is a lucrative 35 percent, accounting for half of the industry's revenues. By 2009, DFC says, the hard-core gaming segment will not have grown as quickly as the other gamer categories, slipping to 27 percent, but will still account for 38 percent of online gaming's projected $10 billion in annual revenue.