Gaming is #1 and still growing in Online Entertainment
August 31st, 2007 Posted in Game IndustryAccording to Parks Associates Casual Gaming Market Update report, in the United States, gaming is still more popular than  watching video clips or engaging in social networking.
Parks found that 34% of US adult Internet users played online games every week, compared with 29% who watched video clips and 19% who visited social networking Web sites.
“Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities,” said James Kuai, a research analyst at Parks Associates, in a statement. “Gaming also has business advantages.
“Unlike sites for social networking and video streaming, which rely solely on advertising revenue,” he said, “casual gaming has more mature and heterogeneous revenue models, including Web-based and in-game advertising, try-before-you-buy, subscriptions and micro-transactions.”
The year-over-year growth rate for frequent online gamers was 79%. The number of frequent social networkers grew by 46% over 2006, and frequent video clip viewers grew 123% in one year.
Source: emarketer.com