Online Gaming Audience Grew 22 Percent In May 2

The number of U.S. citizens visiting online gaming websites rose 22 percent in May 2009 from May 2008 to 87 million, as people search for cheaper entertainment in a tough economy, research firm comScore said Friday. “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. Yahoo Games led comScore's list of most popular online gaming websites during May 2009, rising 6 percent from May 2008 to 19.4 million. EA Online followed, attracting 18 million users during the month, a 34 percent year-on-year increase. Nickelodeon Casual Games, which didn't exist in May 2008, attracted 14.8 million visitors. WildTangent was up 16 percent year-on-year with 13.8 million users. Hunter added that online gaming growth is also driven "through viral distribution platforms, including widgets and applications." comScore said Mochi Media, an online game distrubution company, attracted 17 million unique users, or about 8.7 percent of the total internet audience (193.8 million in total). Games2Win attracted 1.8 million, or 0.9 percent of the total internet population, while Tetris Online attracted 165,000 unique visitors during May, or 0.1 percent of the total internet population.