Shady Statistics on the Philippine Online Gaming Market
According to this link, the Philippines will have about 6.3 million online gamers in 2008, in a study that was released by International Data Corporation.
MANILA, Jan. 28 (Xinhuanet) — The number of online gamers in the Philippines will reach 6.3 million by 2008, said a research released by the International Data Corporation (IDC). The increase is driven by the availability of new online gametitles and more broadband connections
Imagine my amusement when I came across an article in today’s Inquirer. Please pay special attention to the numbers that were mentioned.
The networks are taking different routes to gaming glory. ABS-CBN has its wholly owned unit Amped Games. The unit registered 2.5 million active users for 2007 and wants to double that to 5 million in 2008, said Mitch Padua, Amped Games division head.
GMA is catching up by forging an P800-million joint venture called I-Play with listed conglomerate IPVG Corp., which has an existing active player base of 2.5 million.
Having seen these figures, I decided to visit Alexa, and this is what I found.
Without going into figure specifics, you can obviously see the difference in site traffic. This can mean a few things.
- One is bloating their figures.
- One is lying.
- Both are lying.
If you notice, the 3rd player trumps both of these sites in terms of average site traffic, and yet, they aren’t even mentioned in the article. While the local gaming market can pretty much be defined by online games, seeing these outrageous claims just makes me scratch my head (after all, I used to work for a videogame magazine).
Let me put it this way. Judging by the 18,000 that was able to fill up the Araneta Coliseum in last night’s game 7, why not prove all the claims and stage an event there? Surely, if each of these gaming companies really have 2.5 million existing gamers, how hard can it be to mobilize about 18,000 of them?
I just hope we can put an end to all these fabricated figures. The local gaming industry would be better off that way. 
*2.5 million gamers to be increased to 5 million in 2008? Give me an effin’ break. Visit the Amped Forums and you’ll see that they only have around 37,800+ members.
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March 2nd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
In terms of website traffic, there are already many free and independent trackers such as Google Analytics and SiteMeter. And if a game’s subscriber base can be extrapolated from how many people visit its website (as you’re asserting), then Level Up should be more public about their traffic.
And for that matter, so should Amped and e-games.
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Level Up! Live 2007 had around 16,000 attendees making it the biggest online gaming related event in the country.
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:42 pm
That’s good to know. I’ve been to a lot of Level-up events in the past, and it has been the only time I’ve seen a display of a local gaming company’s pulling power.
Without naming names, there are just so many gaming companies out there who hire marketing people with no previous gaming experience. Since they’re already virtually non-existent in the gaming scene, I can go ahead and say that Mobius is one of them.
Oh well.
March 2nd, 2008 at 10:49 pm
The Technographist
Yes, honestly it can. Because not only are we dealing with games, we’re dealing with virtual communities. Imagine RO without any interaction outside the game. I think it has been proven that this is one of the reasons why the game has lasted this long.
I just want to see some proof where the 2,500,000 figure is coming from
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:23 am
[...] came across this recently published article on JustAnotherGame dot Com which talked discussed a recent article on the industry published in today’s Inquirer [...]
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:28 am
Sweet article. I’ve yet to see another online gaming company stage an event as big as Level Up LIVE.
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:51 am
i still believe LUG has the most number of active online players with such games as RF, PW, and RO.
March 4th, 2008 at 5:04 am
Marketing gimmik! They are doing this to attract more clients (for them).
March 6th, 2008 at 1:30 am
There are actually many reasons why the 3rd player meaning levelup seems to have higher traffic. One is that a lot of the traffic is coming from places outside of the Philippines since LUG has presence in Brazil and India, they get some cross traffic as well. Second, is that all of the individual game sites of LUG redirect to one URL which helps boost its traffic count. Amped has tantra and warrock as individual URLs not contributing to the amped.ph link while E-games isnt a regional player yet so doesnt benefit from cross traffic from other countries. All visits from outside becomes incidental.
March 6th, 2008 at 10:34 am
thanks for your opinion, anonymous internet flamer! lol
March 6th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
Let me correct that. India and Brazil users DO NOT come to levelupgames.ph, if you do a little homework, you can go to http://www.levelupgames.com to see that each coutnry has a different website that hosts their own applications, billing and content.
Besides, web statistics vis-a-vis gamer statistics are apples vs. oranges. It’s not the same thing. You can gauge, yes. But the metrics will not show the true facts.
Peace!
March 6th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Watch out for the coming of advergames. One reason I see why they are publishing this “kind” of numbers.
March 7th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Hi _LP,
As far as I know, Level-up has already started setting the trend in advergaming (I think this is the reason they have JC Medina? I could be mistaken.). Last time I talked with Ben Colayco (this was a loonnng time ago), he said that it has to be done right.
The example he gave is the following — if Coke wanted to put some placements in RO, then Coke, in turn would have to label their cans “red potions”, or something to that extent. It’s very tricky, but it can’t get any more targeted than that.
About 3 years ago, Penshoppe also went into business with Level-up for a line of RO apparel. I just don’t know if it’s an initiative that they’re still continuing until now.
Anyhow, at least mainstream advertisers are starting to notice. Maybe an audit is also in order?
March 7th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Level Up! has had advergaming deals with Coke, Nokia, and Nestle. No just PR BS but ACTUAL partnerships and programs.
Level up! also announced casual games wayy before this so called I-Play (which is one character more than AMDG’s own IPlay service (iplayasia). Who gets to name these things anyway? Doh. Maybe they are gonna merge ?
bluelineabove and redlineabove, K-I-S-S-I…you know the rest