Free is a good price. With Americans tightening their belts, many have turned to free online games for amusement.
While others have seen online ad revenues slide, online gaming sites (not to be confused with online gambling sites) saw display advertising views spike 29 percent in November from a year earlier, according to a report released Wednesday morning by research outfit ComScore. That’s primarily because these sites saw more people coming to play their games.
While overall Internet traffic grew 4 percent in December, the number of visitors to online gaming sites grew 27 percent from December 2007 to 86 million, ComScore said. They’re also spending more time on the sites, up 42 percent per visitor.
“It appears that online, ad-supported gaming is one of the activities that has benefited during this economic downturn,” ComScore analyst Edward Hunter said. “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.”
It’s important to note that the survey does not include data from massive multiplayer online games such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft, both of which require monthly subscriptions to play.
The top free-to-play gaming sites that posted gains in December include:
WildTangent up 74 percent
EA Online up 21 percent
Yahoo Games up 20 percent
Addicting Games up 17 percent
Disney Games up 13 percent.
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