42% Of Americans Play Games Online

By Mike Sachoff - Wed, 04/02/2008 - 17:11

90% use a PC for online gaming

Participation in gaming increased in 2007 over 2006, from 64 percent of the population to 72 percent of the population according to a new report from The NPD Group, "Online Gaming 2008."

More than half play games online, with 90 percent of online gamers saying they use a PC to play games and 19 percent said they use a video game console with 3 percent saying they use a cell phone.

The number of online gamers relative to the total U.S. population is 42 percent so far this year, up from 40 percent in 2007.

Of those who use a video game console for online gaming, Xbox 360 is the most popular, with 50 percent saying they play games using that system. On average, Xbox 360 owners spend the most time per week using their consoles to play games online, followed by PC and PS3 owners.

Thirteen percent of online gamers spend 20 hours or more per week on online gaming. Per platform, 33 percent of portable online gamers, 29 percent of console gamers and 13 percent of PC gamers are in this heaviest online gaming group.

Multiple console ownership is low, with only 3 percent reporting they own two of the three systems and only 2 percent say they own all three systems.

"Despite the buzz in the industry regarding online gaming, it is still relatively small compared to offline gaming," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. "There is still a large, untapped market for gaming in general and online gaming in particular."

News Tags: Social Media, Online Gaming, Xbox 360, NPD Group

About the author:
Mike is a staff writer for WebProNews.

8 Comments

By Ways to earn money immediately (WPN reader) - Fri, 02/13/2009 - 04:09

This is only the beginning!

If you would really think about it: The internet are becoming fierce in competition each day, as more people are realising it each passing day. Every newer generation will become fanatics over these type of things. From cellphones, games, computers, you name it!

By Internet Marketing Indonesia (WPN reader) - Mon, 11/10/2008 - 03:41

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By AlliedWarMachine.com (WPN reader) - Mon, 04/07/2008 - 11:37

If your thought is that no

If your thought is that no one over the age of 30 plays games you're blind.

We run an online gaming company. We host several games and are growing at a rate of over 250% a year. Our average player is in his late 30's or early 40's. We host several kinds of games - mostly first person military shooters (Call of Duty, COD - United Offensive, COD 2, Call of Duty 4) but we also run Flight Combat simulators (IL-2: Pacific Fighters, IL-2: 1946, Air Attack) and Poker based gaming and it's all free. We host only PC based games, no console games what so ever. Our membership is growing weekly. Our site visits have gone from 100 a day 2 years ago to +/- 1000 a day now. Online Gaming is growing, and it is growing quickly. We currently have 70 dedicated members who play on our game servers and design customized maps and games for us. We are projecting that by the end of the year we will have approximately 125 active and contributing members and be close to 1/2 million page visits for the year.

By wizdomheard (WPN reader) - Thu, 04/03/2008 - 20:40

Online Games

Online Games are definetely fun to play when you have time on your hands. I for one love to play online games for an hour or two. I wish I could get paid to do it. Anybody looking for someone to test their games before they come out during their beta testing please send me an email. Playing games online versus playing on a console can be a tough decision being that both have their own benefits. I prefer Playstation 3 over the Xbox 360 because of the size of the controller. I get a better grip on the playstation controller. The Xbox 360 controller is a little too big but I still love the graphics on the Xbox. ANYWAY GAMES ROCK!!

By Vim (WPN reader) - Sun, 05/17/2009 - 16:12

Yes, love playing flash games

Sure, flash games do rock !! I've been playin them last few years and can only see the quality improving each day.

A few of my personal favorite games to play online :

Madness Interactive

Puzzle Bobble

Rise Of Atlantis

By Guest (WPN reader) - Thu, 04/03/2008 - 15:23

72% seems incredibly

72% seems incredibly unlikely considering the gamer market mostly consists of the 13-30 year old age group - and they alone don't make up 72% of the population. So even if everyone in that age group played, you wouldn't get near that figure.

I am in that agegroup and I know that not even half the people my age play games online, I think your source of statistics is somehow skewed - as if you ran a poll on a gamer website or something.

By Guest (WPN reader) - Thu, 04/03/2008 - 05:26