Nickelodeon, a Viacom-owned media conglomerate, will be extending its reach into the world of massively multiplayer online games. Monkey Quest is an upcoming MMOG from Nickelodeon.
The Nickelodeon brand is a leading content creator for children in the 8-12 age range. Nickelodeon is the highest-rated kid’s channel in the United States, featuring a number of popular animation series. Nickelodeon reaches almost 98 percent of U.S. households and constitutes nearly 16 percent of Viacom’s stock value, which demonstrates how valuable and potent Nickelodeon is as a brand. It seems to stand to reason for Nickelodeon to compete with Disney in this space, which has long had Club Penguin, a successful children-oriented virtual world. Nickelodeon would apparently benefit in extending its many brands in television, movies, and characters into the online gaming space.
Monkey Quest will be available for free, while players can pay for additional and features piecemeal (microtransactions). At this point it’s too early to gauge its profitability, but assuming each player signed up for a $9.95 premium subscription, the annual revenue would be $100 million. Viacom’s “TV Show DVDs, Video Games & Other” division account for 7 percent of Viacom’s stock value. Even a $100 million success story may represent only a marginal positive impact on Viacom’s bottom line.
