Report: Casual gaming gets serious

Next-gen.biz

has a full report from media research firm Interpret, which throws up some fascinating facts and figures on the rise and rise of casual gaming.

According to figures from Interpret’s Gameasure service, casual games reached over 145 million people aged 12-65 in 2007. Of that figure, over 71 million play casual games for one or more hours per week.

The 85 per cent of people surveyed said that they prefer to play free ad-supported games than pay for downloads, and the average time spent per week playing casual games increased 28 per cent (four hours to 5.1 hours) from Q3 ’07 to Q4 ’07.

It also states that time spent with casual games already surpasses magazines, newspapers, and other activities on the Internet.

Check out the full report here.