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Big Media Investment in Games: The competitive challenge

February 11, 2010

By
Ben Keen

Nick Gibson

Piers Harding-Rolls

This research aims to assess the new games industry strategies of a selection of media companies in the USA and Europe to gauge their likelihood of success and their impact on the games sector. The research comprises six separate chapters, looking specifically at Disney, Warner Bros., Viacom, News Corp, NBC Universal and a selection of major European media companies. Disney, Warner Bros. and Viacom alone have spent over $3bn since 2004 on games company acquisitions and game development investments underlining the scale of their ambition to compete directly with established pure-play games publishers.

2009 proved to be another solid year for games content revenues. While the traditional retail market for games saw some decline compared to the outstanding 2008, the online games markets and the emergence of new games platforms such as social networks and the iPhone prompted great growth in these alternative sectors. Over the last five years, games have begun to reach new demographic markets and are increasingly impacting, and in many respects threatening, the time and money spent consuming more traditional media such as TV, music and fi lm. Games have now become such an accepted part of children and young adults' lives that many of the world's largest media companies have begun to embark on vigorous and sometimes renewed attempts to gain a foothold in the games market.

List of tables and charts:

Introduction

Media companies' comparative financials

Disney

Disney's recent games-related transactions
Disney Interactive Studios' development investment
Disney Interactive Studios' supply chain
Disney Interactive Studios' revenue
Disney Interactive Studios' 2006 development spend, split by IP origin
Key IP owned and licensed by Disney

Warner Brothers

List of major group companies
Warner Bros's recent games transactions
Key IP owned and licensed by Warner Bros.

Viacom

Viacom's recent games transactions
Nickelodeon games sites traffic in August 2009

News Corp

News Corp's recent games transactions

Pages: 64 Tables & charts: 13

Tags:

Companies: Axel Springer BBC Bertelsmann Channel 4 Disney Hubert Burda Media ITV Mediaset/Endemol NBC Universal RTL Viacom Warner Bros News Corporation

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