Revenues from massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) in the US and Europe hit $1 billion (£510 million) last year, driven by the success of Vivendi’s World of Warcraft title.

Almost 90 per cent of sales from the games, which are played by millions across the globe, came from subscriptions, worth nearly $600 million in the US and $300 million in Europe, according to Screen Digest, the research group. Sales of virtual assets and in-game advertising were worth a further $100 million.

User numbers in Asia are thought to exceed those in Europe, but analysts are yet to get to grips with the highly fragmented market. In South Korea alone, it is estimated that there at least 3,000 publishers of online games. China and India, meanwhile, are seeing explosive take-up of internet access, but it is unclear how many users in these countries are paying to play.

Screen Digest forecasts that by 2011 over 10 million subscription accounts in Europe and the US will generate revenues of more than $1.5 billion.

Last year, World of Warcraft was by far the most popular subscription-earning game, accounting for 54 per cent of the subscription market and generating revenue of more than $470 million. Its nearest competitor was Runescape, from Jagex, the UK-based publisher.

Piers Harding-Rolls, the Screen Digest analyst, said that the introduction of new genres of games, including social networking, virtual pet rearing and virtual world titles, had boosted the market by appealing to a broader base of users than earlier fantasy titles.

“These new games and platforms have brought with them many new gamers and also new business models that are generating new revenues," he said.

Earlier this month, the popularity of Vivendi’s World of Warcraft helped to boost the French media group’s annual results as it revealed lacklustre fourth-quarter figures from SFR, its mobile operator, and Universal Music.

The online role-playing game, in which more than 8.5 million players lead fantasy lives, helped Vivendi Games to post a 109 per cent increase in net profits in 2006, to €115 million.

The division is still a minnow in the Vivendi portfolio, but has already registered record-breaking sales in 2007.

Blizzard Entertainment, the Vivendi Games unit behind the title, today said that World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the latest version of the game, sold about 3.5 million copies within one month of its launch in the US in mid-January.

Blizzard had earlier announced that the title had sold nearly 2.4 million copies in its first 24 hours - more than any other PC game had sold with a first month on sale.

Gary Severson, senior vice president and general manager at Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said: "Not only was The Burning Crusade the top-selling item in our electronics department the day it released; it had the best day-one sales of any PC-game launch in our company's history."

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