The online gaming industry analysts at Screen Digest recently shared some good news and bad news with Western MMO developers. The good? According to their report, the MMO market in Europe and the U.S. increased to $1.6 billion last year, up from $1.4 billion in 2008. However, the average revenue gained per MMO player declined 10 percent over the same time period, with recurring subscriptions pulling in around $13 million in 2009. (That's the bad news.)

This decline, of course, is a result of new business models in the MMO space, such as microtransactions and free-to-play online titles. These new models appear to be shaking things up a bit -- but we suppose as long as that first number keeps going up, the second one can do whatever it likes.