US console DLC tops $875m in revenues, 20m consumers
51 per cent of HD console owners have downloaded digital content
Research from games analyst EEDAR shows that 51 per cent of HD console owners in the US downloaded digital content for their systems in the past 12 months - up from 40 per cent in 2010 and 34 per cent in 2009.
That DLC generated more than $875 million in sales in 2011, with EEDAR estimating that figure to rise to £1 billion in 2012.
The firm estimates that 20 million consumers in North America bought DLC in the past 12 months, up from 14 million last year and 9 million in 2009.
Drivers for DLC growth include earlier release timing and quicker downloads due to faster broadband speeds.
According to respondents, reason for not downloading digital content for console games includes concerns over privacy, no returns policy, high price and enough free DLC to satisfy the user.
EEDAR suggests that converting the 49 per cent of consumers who do not download digital content into active purchasers would generate another $600 million in revenue.
EEDAR collected data from 3500 respondents in the US and Canada.
It certainly would be helpful, if this data would be divided into categories like DLC for retail games, movie&music downloads and stand-alone DLC games. As a developer of PSN/XBLA games, I really think that the market for smaller Arcade / DL games hasn't grown nearly as much as the total DLC market.
I suspect that the DLC market for expansion add-ons for retail games explains the majority of the growth. For example, Activision said that the average Black Ops customer is spending around $76 USD. They recently also said that they have sold 18 million of DLC map packs. $15 times 18 million unit is a cool $270MUSD of DLC revenue. It's quite a hefty chunk of the total $875MUSD quoted above!
Posted:A year ago