Let the aggregation onslaught begin, Showtime announces On Broadband

With the social aspects of online gaming, the video game industry is surpassing its legacy as "simply" a tool for fun and is beginning to get the reputation it deserves as a legitimate "third place." Big media loves that combination of entertainment and social connection that they found so intoxicating in social networks, so expect them to start upping the anti in games. Witness Time Warner acquiring a 10% stake in SCi/Eidos, or Vivendi's recent acquisitions, or Turner's GameTap. And of course where big media goes, the pipes will follow.

This week Showtime announced a new broadband gaming service, On Broadband. They plan to private label the service to broadband providers. This makes sense since rumors are strong that several of the leading broadband providers are pursuing strategies to play in the MMOG space as some kind of aggregator.

However, keep in mind there were a handful of services in Asia that tried to get together a bunch of MMOGs under one monthly fee, and they pretty universally bombed. You also don't see a lot of numbers out of Sony for their All Access pass, and I'm sure there is a reason.

Either way, the entrance of telcos and big media into online gaming is likely a boon for both game developers and publishers.

For innovative Developers like TellTale Games, these aggregators can sometimes serve as alternative publishers to help fund and distribute your game. As Publishers, there is some precedent for selling exclusive territory or distribution rights for decent upfront fees ($.5-3m).

Nexon has created quite a nice revenue stream by selling distribution rights of MapleStory to individual territories. Imagine Turbine selling the "exclusive" broadband distribution rights for Lotro to Comcast for a nice upfront fee, but still preserving their distribution rights at retail.

Each of these aggregation services is going to be looking for some kind of leg up, and that's good for diversity in the industry.

(thanks PlayNoEvil)