A study from the market research company Parks Associates has reported that the total number of people that play video games in the U.S. has nearly tripled, rising 241 percent, since 2008.

The company has published a study titled Trends in Digital Gaming: Free-to-Play, Social, and Mobile Games that reveal these staggering numbers of the growing gaming population in the U.S. The study states that "135 million people play at least one hour of games per month (compared to 56 million in 2008)" and that "most of these new gamers are casual gamers and have been attracted to the gaming world by social or free-to-play games through new, convenient platforms such as smartphones and tablets."

The study insists that companies are now trying to focus on building gamer communities, instead of ending support at the purchase. Showing that this concept is very successful, the study issues that "gamers who spend money on Facebook games average about $29 USd per month in spending while those who pay for virtual goods and upgrades in free-to-play games spend about $21 USD per month on average. These amounts are not too far from the $24-$27 per month spent by incidental and occasional gamers on new console games."

From the article, "The U.S. gaming population almost triples in the past 3 years by Ben Miller

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