Online gaming: A quarter on-board

A global comScore study finds that one in four Web users are visiting gaming sites regularly (via Next-Gen).

The study took into account all sites offering online or downloadable games, excluding gambling sites. The sector brought in 28 percent of the total worldwide Web population in May. Each of those users visited a gaming site a whopping 9 times during the month, demonstrating that gaming sites merit a second look by media planners.

In total, the number of visitors frequenting online gaming sites has climbed to nearly 217 million, a growth of 17 percent from the previous year.

Yahoo! Games was the was popular among those in North America and the Asia-Pacific regions, registering 53 million unique visitors. MSN Games placed second with 40 million unique visitors in May.

The fastest-growing online gaming property was the WildTangent Network, with a remarkable 398 percent growth over the past year.

MarketingCharts provides more data from the comScore study.