As recession ripples around the world, Asian online games firms hope those seeking cheap entertainment, many of them newly jobless and with time on their hands, will drive a long-sought expansion into Western markets.
Online games, which allow thousands of players to compete simultaneously over the Internet, are a dominant form of video gaming in China, South Korea and other parts of Asia.
Blockbusters such as World of Warcraft by Blizzard Entertainment, a unit of France's Vivendi, and the Lineage series from South Korea's NCSoft have attracted millions of users across the region.
Analysts estimate the online game market at about a fifth of the size of the video console game market. Total PC game revenue is expected to reach $19 billion by 2013, according to entertainment industry research DFC Intelligence.
Easy broadband access and a game culture built around cyber cafes helped gaming on PCs prosper in Asia. In North America and Europe, however, Web-based games have failed to duplicate their Asian success, largely due to lower broadband penetration and cultural differences.
Now the spreading economic downturn could do what years of marketing couldn't, developers and publishers said.
"During economic downturns, people will look for the highest return on their entertainment dollar. Online games provide an immersive virtual world for people to escape the daily struggles," says Lan Hoang, CEO of Aeria Games & Entertainment, which offers Asian games in the US and European markets.
Analysts say online games are not only recession-proof but can even get a boost from an economic slump, because people stay longer at home and have more time on their hands to play.
"I don't think [online multiplayer games] get impacted at all, because people who play them are addicts," says Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Morgan. "Losing their jobs makes them more likely to play because they have more time to play."
In South Korea, online gaming quickly spread to become a social phenomenon in the early 2000s in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis, which left many young men unemployed.
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