The online gaming site category in the US has grown 27% during the past year to 86 million visitors in December 2008, while the total time spent playing PC-based online games jumped 42%, new research has found.
According to the analysis of US usage of online game sites by comScore, Americans’ total share of internet time spent playing online games grew from 3.7% in December 2007 to 4.9% in December 2008.
Despite a challenging online display advertising market, trends look positive for online gaming, comScore said.
From November 2007 to November 2008, the total number of display ad views in the category grew 29% to 8.6 billion. The increase in display ad exposures is a result of the increasing number of visitors to the category (up 30%), while the average person’s frequency of exposure has remained relatively constant at 127 ad views per person.
Another positive trend appears to be that number of display ads per page view – a measure of ‘ad clutter’ – has declined 17%.
Edward Hunter, comScore director of gaming solutions, said: “The growth in display ads in the online gaming category not only underscores the assertion that gamers are increasingly accepting of ad-supported games, but also that the advertising community is recognizing the value of this highly engaged audience.
“It is also likely that the advertising agency community will begin to demand more evaluations of campaign effectiveness in this space as spend and impressions continue to rise.”
Research from Nielsen Online published last August found that entertainment, games and video sites are the most popular websites with people under the age of 23 in the UK, with gaming sites most popular with 12-17 year-olds (see Entertainment, Gaming And Video Sites Are Most Popular With Young People).
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