05/04/2011, Players

People across the world use the internet for a wide range of activities and purposes. According to a Nielsen Company research, people spend 10.2%, up from 9.3%, of their online time playing online games, which puts gaming in second place, right behind the social networking with 22% of time spent.

The Nielsen's research shows a significant growth of the gaming industry, especially in the online gaming area, including casino games, console games, mobile games that require online connectivity in order to play, or other types of browser-based games.

“Because of increasing average Internet speeds and advances in technology, a large number of game genres are now playable online. With these new online gaming options, people are spending a larger share of their online time playing games. Playing video games currently amounts to ten percent of the time spent online by American consumers,” said Pietro Macchiarella, Research Analyst, Parks Associates.

American online gamers spend 906 million hours per month on social networks (22.7%), 407 million on games (10.2%) and 329 million on email (8.3%). The rest of the activities include portals (4.4%), instant messaging (4.0%), videos/movies (3.9%), search (3.5%), software info (3.3%), multi-category entertainment (2.8%) and classified/auctions (2.7%).