Consumers set up a blockbuster holiday season at the Box Office
Distributed Gaming Content Publishers Compare Favorably Against Gaming Destination Sites
RESTON, VA, July 10, 2009 – Comscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of the online gaming category among U.S. Internet users, which showed a significant increase in the size of its audience during the past year as consumers increasingly opt for cheaper entertainment alternatives, driven in part by the reality of economic challenges. The category attracted 87 million U.S. visitors in May 2009, up 22 percent versus year ago.
Yahoo! Games ranked #1 in the category with 19.4 million visitors, representing a 6-percent increase over the past year, followed by EA Online with 18 million visitors (up 34 percent), Nickelodeon Casual Games with 14.8 million visitors, and WildTangent Network with 13.8 million (up 16 percent). GSN Games Networks achieved particularly strong gains in the past year, growing 563 percent to 6 million visitors, due primarily to the additions of entities such as WorldWinner.com and CrazyMonkeyGames.com.
Top Online Gaming Sites
May 2009 vs. May 2008
Total U.S. – Home/Work/University Locations
Source: Comscore MMX
Total Unique Visitors (000)
May-2008
May-2009
% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience
190,858
193,825
2
Online Gaming
71,624
87,102
22
Yahoo! Games
18,340
19,391
6
EA Online
13,374
17,988
34
Nickelodeon Casual Games
N/A
14,836
WildTangent Network
11,896
13,844
16
Disney Games
12,137
11,717
-3
MSN Games
10,017
8,986
-10
AOL Games
8,318
8,711
5
MINICLIP.COM
7,551
8,432
12
Betawave Partners - Partial List
3,894
7,406
90
Spil Games
4,345
7,163
65
GSN Games Network
910
6,034
563
Big Fish Games Sites
4,392
5,592
27
ARMORGAMES.COM
2,684
3,860
44
Y8.COM
1,243
3,537
185
GAMEVANCE.COM
3,982
3,466
-13
RealArcade Sites
6,143
3,427
-44
IWIN.COM
2,112
3,356
59
Midasplayer.com Ltd.
1,601
2,872
79
GAMENINJA.COM
1,172
2,434
108
Stardoll Sites
2,294
“Online gaming continues to be one of the top gaining categories over the past year growing at ten times the rate of the total U.S. Internet population and reaching nearly one out of every two Internet users,” said Edward Hunter, Comscore director of gaming solutions. “And the growth in the category is occurring not only at the top gaming destination sites, but also through viral distribution platforms, including widgets and applications. In fact, some online gaming companies that distributed their games across sites are reaching as many people as the top online gaming sites.”
Distribution Platforms Increase in Significance to Online Gaming Market
Distributed content, as measured by Comscore Extended Web Metrix, represents a growing trend in the online gaming space. Distributed content platforms, including widgets and applications, can often reach audiences of a size comparable to online gaming destination sites. MochiMedia, for example, reached a combined audience of 16.9 million in May, greater than all but two sites in the online gaming category. Games2Win reached 1.8 million people, which compares favorably with the top twenty sites in the category, while Tetris Online reached 165,000 people.
Top Online Gaming Extended Web Entities*May 2009 Total U.S. – Home/Work/University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX (Extended Web)
% Reach
100.0
MochiMedia
16,919
8.7
Games2Win
1,822
0.9
Tetris Online
165
0.1
*Measurement of extended web entities requires participation from publishers to tag distributed content for measurement purposes. The sites listed do not represent an exhaustive list of online gaming publishers with distributed content.
“The power and reach of viral content distribution is well captured by Comscore Extended Web Metrix,” said Alok Kejriwal, CEO and Co-Founder, Games2win. “With these latest consumer traffic numbers, we can now effectively present and strategically leverage our accelerating audience reach, and share data with our advertisers, marketers and partners that represents a holistic view of who is playing our games and from where.”
About ComscoreComscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
PressBill DaddiDaddi Brand Communications646-370-1341press@comscore.com