Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Game On! Online Game Play Surges as Gamers Seek Out Free Alternatives in Tight Economy

Minutes Spent Playing Online Games Jumps 42 Percent versus Year Ago

January 28, 2009 - comScore, Inc. a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an analysis of Americans' usage of online gaming sites, which showed that the category has grown 27 percent during the past year to 86 million visitors in December 2008, while the total time spent playing online games has jumped 42 percent. Americans' total share of Internet time spent playing online games grew from 3.7 percent in December 2007 to 4.9 percent in December 2008.

Yahoo! Games ranked as the most visited site in the category with 19.5 million visitors (up 20 percent), followed by EA Online with 15.4 million visitors (up 21 percent), and Disney Games with 13.4 million visitors (up 13 percent). The tenth most visited site, Spil Games, saw traffic surge 269 percent to 6.7 million visitors.

"It appears that online, ad-supported gaming is one of the activities that has benefited during this economic downturn," said Edward Hunter, comScore director of gaming solutions. "Not only have consumers turned to outlets such as gaming to take their minds off the economy, but as they curtail their discretionary gaming-related purchases they are turning to free alternatives."



Full story at: http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=fcs8dxcab.0.0.o7uw4wcab.0&ts=S0384&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.comscore.com%2Fpress%2Frelease.asp%3Fpress%3D2706&id=preview

Generations Online in 2009

January 28, 2009: from Pew Internet & American Life Project -- Contrary to the image of Generation Y as the "Net Generation," internet users in their twenties do not dominate every aspect of online life. Generation X is the most likely group to bank, shop and look for health information online. Boomers are just as likely as Generation Y to make travel reservations online. And even Silent Generation internet users are competitive when it comes to email (although teens might point out that this is proof that email is for old people).

The biggest increase in internet use since 2005 can be seen in the 70-75 year-old age group. While just over one-fourth (26%) of 70-75 year olds were online in 2005, 45% of that age group is currently online.

A few online activities previously dominated by either older generations or younger generations are now being done more equally across all generations under 73 years old. One such activity is downloading videos, an activity that in 2005 was significantly more popular with teens and Generation Y than with any other generation. Generation X is catching up, as 31% of that generation claim to download videos as of 2007, compared with 38% of Generation Y. Generations on the oldest end of the spectrum also became significantly more likely than they had been two years before to download videos. Some 13% of G.I. Generation internet users (age 73+) reported downloading videos, up from 1% in 2005, and another 13% of the online Silent Generation (ages 64-72) say they download videos, up from 8% in 2005.

Full story at: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1093/generations-online