Online Gaming Revenue To Hit $5 Billion
Americans who play online games like "World of Warcraft" and "EverQuest" generated $2.8 billion in subscription revenue in 2009, and are on track to pay an annual $5 billion in game subscriptions by 2015, according to a new report by market research firm Pike & Fischer.
The number of online gaming paid subscribers, which totaled 19.4 million at the end of last year, will more than double to 44.5 million by the end of 2014. The increase in usage will be driven by the rise in digital distribution of online games as opposed to retail boxed sales, along with an increase in broadband adoption.
"Established franchises such as ‘World of Warcraft,’ ‘EverQuest,’ and ‘Dungeons and Dragons Online’ continue to create new game content in order to retain existing subscribers, while introducing new generations of gamers to their platforms," said Tim Deal, Pike & Fischer senior analyst. "The amount of online play is escalating rapidly."
While the number of online game subscribers will increase, average monthly online game subscription fees will drop from $12 in 2009 to about $9.50 in 2014. This decrease will be fueled by increased competition, increased subscription volume and better cost efficiencies.
P&F says the increasing complexity of online gaming environments will heighten demand on broadband networks, giving Internet service providers an opportunity to boost revenues by adding higher-speed tiers for intense gamers.
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>US Video Game Revenue Down 31%
>Digital Music Sales Closing In On CDs
>42% Of Americans Play Games Online
Essential Strategies to Make Yourself an Elite Raider
Raiding in World of Warcraft is a rite of passage. It takes hours upon hours of practice, dedicated focus on the part of you and your guild, and a very keen eye for the right gear, consumables, and strategies. But, those that master these steps soon rise to the echelon of their servers, drawing accolades from their fellow players in droves. But, how do you get to that pinnacle of raiding perfection? It starts with proper preparation and careful strategy.
The Right Group
Step one to any raiding strategy is finding a good group of people to go raiding with. When you go on a raid, you are with 10 or 25 people. This means that you are only a small part of a much larger whole. It is important to find players who are good at playing those individual roles and who are willing to take orders and learn along with everyone else. If you are starting your own guild, find four or five good players who will do their research and share with everyone else to be officers. If you are joining another guild, look for one that will cater to your play style and availability. The people you play with will have a tremendous impact on how well you develop as a raider.
Your Gear
Next up, make sure that you are properly geared for whatever raids you are attempting to go on. There are hundreds of encounters in World of Warcraft and many of them have specific needs for your gear. Your class will also have a profound impact on what you wear. Naxxramas for instance on 25 man mode might require a small bit of frost resistance gear for players with low natural resistances or low defense numbers. Make sure you are properly geared to keep from wiping your entire raid group around you.
Your Talents
Your talent spec is a vital part of who you are and will determine when you get chosen for a raid and how you are integrated into that raid. If you want to effectively play a role in a raiding group, you need to effectively choose talents that will help you excel as a tank, healer, or DPS accordingly. Check to see what your guild needs more of and then cater your build to those needs.
If you are a hybrid class, you should consider having a dual spec that allows you to switch between two high demand roles. For example, if you are a Death Knight, you may want to have a Blood and Frost Spec so that you can switch between DPS and Tanking if you are ever needed to tank in this role.
At the end of the day, being an elite raider is about practice and teamwork. You’ll never make it happen on your own, so find a good group of players you can count on and work with them intensely to build up your reputation and your skill level. Only then (and several thousand wipes later), can you start to call yourself truly elite.
Essential Strategies to Make Yourself an Elite Raider is a post from Ucigasa’s WoW site.
Warcraft: Why I Don’t Raid
I don’t play nearly as much World of Warcraft as I did originally, but the time I spend in game is spent doing relaxing things like fishing and cooking quests or grinding reputation. Even while leveling up, I didn’t do any of the dungeons at the level intended – most of the instances that my brother and I have done were after we reached a high enough level to two-man the instance. In fact, I think the only dungeon that I’ve done with a group close to the intended level was the Nexus, and I’ve only completed that once. (We’ll leave out the heroic Utgarde Keep run that I started in and then got kicked from.)
The reason that I haven’t done any of these dungeons is not an accident – I’ve purposefully avoided doing any raiding. I believe I’ve mentioned here before that I suck at old games because they are hard, but I don’t really think that the games are really any harder to complete, I’m just not willing to put in the required effort anymore. This parallels my attitude about instances in WOW. Instances and raids require paying attention and actually playing the game, something which is at odds with the intended effect of my time in game.
The end result of this attitude toward a specific section of the game means that I miss out on personally experiencing a lot of the story and progression until long after it is no longer relevant. I’m not really worried about it, however; I can live vicariously through others. Even my brother tends to spend more time in that side of the game. I will be content right now to continue trying to find rare mobs and grinding rep to get cool stuff and money.
Want To Try Healing In WoW? Then Read This
If you’re considering rolling a healing class in World of Warcraft, but you’re just not sure which class is right for you, then this guide will help you make your decision. In particular, we are going to talk about druids, shamans and priests. We will also talk about how healers can be hard to level, and how this will become easier with “dual specs”. When you have finished reading this article, you will be able to pick the right healing class for your playstyle.
First, there are many different healing classes in World of Warcraft, each with their own pros and cons. The main decisions you have to make are choosing between a shaman, a druid, or a priest. The druid’s strengths are mainly HOT’s (heal over time’s). The priest class offers a mix of heal over times and direct heals. The shaman doesn’t have any heal over time abilities, but more than makes up for this with strong direct heal spells and area of effect heals (such as chain heal). The shaman in particular is a master of raid healing.
However, something you need to remember before you roll a healer, is they can be harder to level, if you’re levelling in a healing spec. If you’re a druid, consider using a druid Leveling Guide, and using the feral talents for quicker leveling speeds.
If you’re a priest, you can follow a specific priest Leveling Guide, and spec shadow. The shadow talent tree can give you unrivalled damage, and also offers several mana regeneration skills and talents.
Finally, if you want to try the shaman, you can follow a shaman Leveling Guide. Instead of leveling in the healing spec, you may like to try enhancement or elemental.
Luckily, Blizzard are finally correcting their mistakes, and in the next patch will be allowing players to have “dual” specs. This is great new if you’re a healer, because now you can solo level and farm for mats, and still heal instances for your guild. So when you need to farm some mats or make some gold, you can quickly change to your DPS spec. This makes it so much quicker and fun to power level a healing class.
In conclusion, this guide has discussed some of the pros and cons to leveling a healing class in WoW. Specifically, we covered the main healing classes, why healers can be difficult to level, and the benefits you’re soon going to receive by using a duel spec. Now that you have finished reading this article, you should have plenty of information to help you decide which healing class is for you.
Leveling A Death Knight In WoW? Read This First
If you’re looking for some tips on how to level your death knight, then this guide was written for you. Specifically, we’re going to talk about why you need to finish all the death knight quests in the starting area, which spec is best for leveling, and why you should follow a death knight Leveling Guide. By the time you’ve finished reading this article, you’ll know how to level a death knight fast.
While you may be eager to level your death knight quickly and hit Northrend asap – it’s very important that you finish all of the quests in the death knight starting area. This is because you will receive several powerful weapons and armor which you won’t be replacing for a long time. This will also allow you to release the skills and talent points which haven’t been given to you.
Thankfully, Blizzard have invested a lot of effort into these quest chains, and because of this, they are some of the best quests you’ll find in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion pack.
Next, you’ll need to get the right spec for leveling your death knight. The Unholy spec can be useful for leveling, but it’s primarily designed to be the PVP spec. The main DPS talent build for a death knight is Blood, and it’s the one that most players are using to level quickly. Last but not least, we have the frost talent build. This is the tanking spec, and it isn’t good for solo leveling.
Finally, one of the fastest ways to level your death knight is to follow a death knight Leveling Guide. There’s plenty of free Leveling Guides available, mainly because death knights have become so popular.
However, the best guide on the market has to be Zygor’s Leveling Guide. It does cost $50, but it’s a bargain for the time you’ll save while following his guide to level 80. Also, this guide is an “in-game” guide, which means you will never have to close your WoW client to see where you need to be going.
To summarize, this article has shown you some valuable tips and advice for leveling a death knight fast. In particular, we have talked about why you should finish the starting quests, which spec is fastest for leveling, and what Leveling Guide you should buy for your death knight. Now that you’ve read this guide, you should know how to level your death knight faster than you ever thought possible.
Warcraft Wednesday: Stalled at 80
Last time I mentioned that my brother and I hit level 80 during the Sons of Hodir quests in the Storm Peaks. Well, we’re still pretty much exactly where we were since then. I’ve raised all of the Alliance race reputations to Exalted except Gnomeregan (stupid gnomes) and purchased each of their mounts. I think Blizzard removed the race restrictions on mounts in order to help players get the mount collector achievements. My brother got the Albino Drake from the 50 mount achievement, and he and I both purchased the Artisan riding skill. I only have the normal fast gryphon, but I’m working on getting some other mounts - including a Flying Carpet. Now it’s a little bit quicker to get around in Northrend, as we can avoid using the flight paths that go way out of the way to get to some places.
Faster mounts have helped to do the various dailies that I’ve been doing instead of progressing through the rest of Storm Peaks and Icecrown. I did the Frenzyheart dailies in Sholazar Basin until I got the achievement for doing all eight of them at least once - there are only three of them each day, with two of them picking from seven different quests. Once I got that achievement, I switched over to the Oracles by killing Artruis the Heartless again. Now I’m doing the dailies for the Oracles in hopes of getting a Green Proto Drake from the Mysterious Egg.
As for the other dailies that I’m doing, I do the Sons of Hodir dailies (I’m almost to Revered with them), the daily for K3 with the land mines, and the Hyldnir daily. Speaking of the Hyldnir daily, Sunday I managed to pick up the Reins of the White Polar Bear from that, which is a pretty rare drop. Even though that’s really the only item benefit from that daily, it’s easy enough that I’ll continue to do it for the gold reward.
If I find any free time this weekend I’ll probably try to do some actual questing - I’d like to advance in the story.
A Review of the Ultimiate WoW Guide
There is little doubt that anyone who gets a copy of the Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide will find the perfect companion for your World of Warcraft characters and playing experience.
What you get in the Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide is a comprehensive manual that covers every aspect for playing Word of Warcraft you can possiblt think of, perhaps more. Be it leveling 1-80, how to generate as much gold as possible, profession guides and much more.
When you log into and download the first guide you will also see that the members area contains a lot of information.You will find in fact the information in this first guide contains is much more then a number of other guides on the market sell as an entire prodcut. Yet this first guide for beginngers is scarcely 5% of what is contained in this massive members area.
The Ultimate Wow Guide members area have guides that cover everthing in great detail, everything that you could possibly need to know and be successful to master World of Warcraft, not just beginngers, there is a lot of information,tips and tactics for experienced players to get even more out of WoW.
There is no reason to go out and look at any other guide, the Ultimate WoW Guide contains every aspect of playing WoW in one place.Importantly the Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide is kept up-to-date by a player who plays for a minimum of 5 hours a day.
This means that you are getting from one of the most experienced World of Warcraft players the most recent information.So when there is a patch for the Ultimate WoW Guide is update almost instantly so that you will get the latest information, tips and tricks.
Here is a complete listing of everything that you’ll get once inside the Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide:
- 1 - 80 Horde Leveling Guide
- 1 - 80 Alliance Leveling Guide
- Power Level 30-60 Grinding Method
- Burning Crusade 60-70 Leveling Guide
- Wrath of the Lich King 70-80 Leveling Guide
- Power level Profession Guides
- Gold Farming Guide
- Alchemy 1-375
- Cooking 1-375
- Engineering 1-375
- Herbalism 1-375
- Leatherworking 1-375
- Lockpicking 1-350
- Tailoring 1-375
- Blacksmithing 1-375
- Enchanting 1-375
- First Aid 1-375
- Jewelcrafting 1-375
- Mining 1-375
- Skinning 1-375
- Inscription 1-375
- Profession Trainers List
- TBC Bind on Pick-up Recipes
- Vendor Recipes
- Faction Recipes Rewards
- Beginner Gold Guide
- Earning for your Level 40 Mount for level 1-40
- Auction House Strategies
- Auctioneer Video Tutorial - 300g/hour
- Level 70 Farming Spots 120-180g/hour
- Aldor and Scryers up to 160g/hour
- Motes Farming up to 130g/hour
- Daily Quest Guide v2.4
- Other Articles
- Level 70 Attunements Guide
- 2.0 Combat Rating System Explanation
- Safe Way to Buy WoW Gold and Accounts
Burning Crusade: Level 60-70 Class Guides and Instance Loot List:
- Druid
- Rogue
- Paladin
- Hunter
- Shaman
- Priest
- Mage
- Warlock
- Warrior
Pre-TBC Level 10-60 Instance Loot List:
- Death Knight
- Druid
- Rogue
- Paladin
- Hunter
- Shaman
- Priest
- Mage
- Warlock
- Warrior
And there are even more separate articles inside on secret topics that interested the creator of this amazing website.
Take my advice - the only site and guide you will ever need is the Ultimate Word of Warcraft Guide, it is the complete package to level as quick as possible, complete quests without fuss, generate $1000’s in gold and obtain the best equipment.
A Review of the Ultimiate WoW Guide
There is little doubt that anyone who gets a copy of the Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide will find the perfect companion for your World of Warcraft characters and playing experience.
What you get in the Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide is a comprehensive manual that covers every aspect for playing Word of Warcraft you can possiblt think of, perhaps more. Be it leveling 1-80, how to generate as much gold as possible, profession guides and much more.
When you log into and download the first guide you will also see that the members area contains a lot of information.You will find in fact the information in this first guide contains is much more then a number of other guides on the market sell as an entire prodcut. Yet this first guide for beginngers is scarcely 5% of what is contained in this massive members area.
The Ultimate Wow Guide members area have guides that cover everthing in great detail, everything that you could possibly need to know and be successful to master World of Warcraft, not just beginngers, there is a lot of information,tips and tactics for experienced players to get even more out of WoW.
There is no reason to go out and look at any other guide, the Ultimate WoW Guide contains every aspect of playing WoW in one place.Importantly the Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide is kept up-to-date by a player who plays for a minimum of 5 hours a day.
This means that you are getting from one of the most experienced World of Warcraft players the most recent information.So when there is a patch for the Ultimate WoW Guide is update almost instantly so that you will get the latest information, tips and tricks.
Here is a complete listing of everything that you’ll get once inside the Ultimate World of Warcraft Guide:
- 1 - 80 Horde Leveling Guide
- 1 - 80 Alliance Leveling Guide
- Power Level 30-60 Grinding Method
- Burning Crusade 60-70 Leveling Guide
- Wrath of the Lich King 70-80 Leveling Guide
- Power level Profession Guides
- Gold Farming Guide
- Alchemy 1-375
- Cooking 1-375
- Engineering 1-375
- Herbalism 1-375
- Leatherworking 1-375
- Lockpicking 1-350
- Tailoring 1-375
- Blacksmithing 1-375
- Enchanting 1-375
- First Aid 1-375
- Jewelcrafting 1-375
- Mining 1-375
- Skinning 1-375
- Inscription 1-375
- Profession Trainers List
- TBC Bind on Pick-up Recipes
- Vendor Recipes
- Faction Recipes Rewards
- Beginner Gold Guide
- Earning for your Level 40 Mount for level 1-40
- Auction House Strategies
- Auctioneer Video Tutorial - 300g/hour
- Level 70 Farming Spots 120-180g/hour
- Aldor and Scryers up to 160g/hour
- Motes Farming up to 130g/hour
- Daily Quest Guide v2.4
- Other Articles
- Level 70 Attunements Guide
- 2.0 Combat Rating System Explanation
- Safe Way to Buy WoW Gold and Accounts
Burning Crusade: Level 60-70 Class Guides and Instance Loot List:
- Druid
- Rogue
- Paladin
- Hunter
- Shaman
- Priest
- Mage
- Warlock
- Warrior
Pre-TBC Level 10-60 Instance Loot List:
- Death Knight
- Druid
- Rogue
- Paladin
- Hunter
- Shaman
- Priest
- Mage
- Warlock
- Warrior
And there are even more separate articles inside on secret topics that interested the creator of this amazing website.
Take my advice - the only site and guide you will ever need is the Ultimate Word of Warcraft Guide, it is the complete package to level as quick as possible, complete quests without fuss, generate $1000’s in gold and obtain the best equipment.
Level 80: Worth It
Last week I was down and out with a bad cold, so I stayed home from work. I managed to use my extra time at home to my advantage, however. Even though I was completely miserable, I was able to play World of Warcraft to pass the time. My brother and I managed to hit level 80 while questing in Zul’Drak and the Storm Peaks.
When I hit 70 in Outland, I didn’t really feel like I had accomplished anything, as the Burning Crusade had been out long enough that everyone and their brother had reached 70. Now, even though we took our time to get to 80, I feel like I’m doing it right along with everyone else.
My goal while we finish the Storm Peaks and Icecrown is to make as much money as I possibly can, since I never managed to get enough for my Expert Riding and an epic flying mount. Since all the quests reward gold instead of experience now, it makes it a little easier. Also, there are quite a few new dailies in Northrend - I think I’m going to start doing the Frenzyheart and Oracle quests in Sholazar Basin.
I’m really excited about finishing the questlines in the Storm Peaks because of some lore characters. It will honestly have a hard road topping how epic the Sons of Hodir quests were.
How to be a World of Warcraft millionaire
I got an email the other day from a friend I used to be in a guild with in World of Warcraft. I still play, but he left us about six months ago because he was having trouble keeping up with his classes. I understand - I’ve been there before myself.
He was thinking of jumping back into the game and wanted to ask me about a guide he had just read about and whether I thought it was legitimate. The name of the guide was Warcraft Millionaire.
Now, I’d heard the name tossed around a couple of times in general chat in Ironforge and on a couple of the forums, but hadn’t really thought much of it. There are dozens of gold making guides out there and they usually just recycle the same information. But, my friend was a pro and he seemed to be excited about it - he even said it might get him back into the game and the guild just so he could see how well it worked. If the guide was that compelling, I needed to find out more about it so, I visited the website at WarcraftMillionaire.com and read more about what the guy who wrote it - Brad Johnson - was selling.
My friend was right in a lot of ways. The guide is much different than the other ones I’ve seen before. First, it is written by the game’s first self-professed millionaire - something that was relatively hard to believe until I saw the video of him showcasing his multiple characters at the gold cap.
Second, the guide is extremely well written. A lot of times, you’ll find that game guides are written by someone who clearly didn’t spend much time awake during English classes in school. Well organized, well thought out and broken up into neat, easy to read sections, World of Warcraft Millionaire is a pleasure to read.
Finally, the information in the guide and its multiple bonus guides, is really quite useful. Not only does it include information that I have been more than a little interested in learning more about - things like low level gold techniques (why does every guide seem to focus on Outland these days) and advanced Auction House advice. The guide also focuses on helping beginners and veterans alike understand the basic fundamentals of the Warcraft economy instead of just showing them where to go and kill stuff for gold. It’s a nice breath of fresh air and I can see why this guide would work - if only because it is so easy to follow.
I won’t make any claims or statements about this guide making you a millionaire, or even thousands of gold for that matter - you always have to put the work in to be successful with things like this; but I will say that there are dozens of great gold making tips, a thorough, well presented voice, and one of the top notch approaches to gold making I’ve seen a long time. Plus, I’m glad to have my friend back in the guild. Kudos to Brad.
