Generally speaking, in the U.S., the software packages for MMOGs are purchased from retailers for $30 to $70 USD. The player then also pays a monthly subscription fee of $10 to $20 USD to play online. In Korea, however, the game software is free as a download or on CD-Rom. Then, players must either have a personal subscription for approximately $20 to $30 USD a month, or pay to play at one of the nearly 20,000 Internet cafes found in Korea.

While the U.S. market counts on the retail sales of the game software to cover the initial cost of development and the monthly fees to cover operational expenses, the Korean online gaming revenue, according to the report, encourages mainstream adoption by lowering initial barriers and costs. Online games are available to a wide audience at a low price then, once hooked, players spend heavily on the games and broadband accounts. Lineage, the most popular game in Korea has around 3 million subscribers out of a population of 47 million.

Evidence from NCSoft, says the report, suggests that players become hooked on broadband and gaming at the Internet cafes, which are found on virtually every street corner, and then graduate to personal accounts and home broadband subscriptions. In 1999, almost 80% of NCSoft’s gaming revenue came from the Internet cafes, while personal accounts accounted for 20%. Two years later, however, personal accounts had almost doubled, accounting for 45% of revenue.

The remarkable success of the Korean online gaming market apparently has Sony Online Entertainment, maker of EverQuest, ready to join the party. In January, Sony announced a deal with NCSoft to have NCsoft run EverQuest servers and handle customer support for Korean gamers. Similarly, last August, EA.com announced the launching of Ultima Online "into the explosive Korean Internet Gaming Room (IGR) market in autumn 2001".

But can the Korean online gaming phenomenon translate to the U.S. and other countries? According to the Pyramid Research report, Korea has the highest broadband penetration of not only Asia, but the entire world. The U.S., on the other hand, has a current broadband penetration rate of below 8%. Nevertheless, companies like NCSoft apparently think so. In April 2001, NCSoft formed a U.S. subsidiary, NCSoft-Austin.

Based on their research, the authors of the Pyramid report also believe the same sort of success is possible in the U.S. if the service providers and content producers work together in marketing and distribution and follow the Korean model. In short, the more popular online games become, the greater the broadband penetration.