Broadband Growth Takes Online Gaming To New Heights
Online gaming has achieved unprecedented growth in Europe in the past year with new figures showing that almost 6 million people visited a games site in January.
According to internet analyst Tom Ewing, the upsurge in online gaming has been made possible by advances in technology. “The sector as a whole has been strengthened by the sales of current gaming consoles, which include broadband and online gaming in their development plans,” he said. “Events like the forthcoming launch of X-Box Live in Europe, for instance, act to establish the concept of online gaming. There’s a knock-on effect beyond specific brands.”
High-speed internet access appears to have been a major spur to the online gaming market and the number of broadband connections increased at a relentless pace during 2002 (see European Broadband Subs Grow 55% In 2002, Finds Strategy Analytics).
Ewing notes that the French and the Dutch, who switched to broadband in record numbers last year, also seem to have a strong propensity for games. “The growth of online gaming is the first sign that the long-awaited European broadband boom may actually be here,” he said.
Gaming sites are an attractive proposition for web businesses and advertisers because of the amount of time users spend playing. In the Netherlands, for example, the average visitor to online gaming sites spends more than two hours a month on them. This compares to an average of around 13 minutes on news and information sites.
Not surprisingly, it is young male internet users who are driving the market. Nielsen//NetRatings estimates that 2.5 times as many men as women visit online gaming sites while 12-24 year olds are twice as likely to play games online as other age groups.