According to ComScore (via Techcrunch), 217m people play online games. That’s 28% of all people online, doesn’t including gambling sites and marks a 16.% increase on May 2006.

According to ComScore Europe managing director Bob Ivins:

With one in four Internet users visiting a gaming site, playing games online is extremely popular. The fact that these websites are pulling in over a quarter of the total worldwide Internet population shows what a global phenomenon gaming has become. The potential of the online gaming arena should be especially appealing for advertisers, as the average online gamer visits a gaming site 9 times a month.

The site gives a regional breakdown which shows certain gaming sites are favoured in certain regions. For example, Zylom attracted 10.3m Europeans but only 484,000 Asia-Pacific users (these two geographical regions had the most online gamers overall).

I haven’t done much in recent years, in fact I’m pretty sure the last time I played over the net it was either going head to head with a friend in Command and Conquer: Red Alert or getting my backside whipped by somebody at Quake II.

I feel so old…

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