Survey says, 'Two fifths of American gamers play Facebook games'

Of America's 160 million gamers, 41 percent of them are playing social games on Facebook or another social network, Newzoo's 2010 US National Gamers Survey says. As we all know, social games have just emerged in the later half of this decade compared to console games that been around--if we want to get technical here--for nearly 40 years, which maintain 56 percent of gamers' attention. This means that in just a few short years, social games like FarmVille have become more popular than MMOs, PC or Mac games and games on mobile devices, some of which have had decades to garner the same attention, Newzoo says.

But what's going on here isn't that gamers are switching platforms, rather they're taking on more platforms with the average gamer playing on three of the seven major gaming platforms simultaneously (define average), according to Newzoo.
Newzoo's US National Gamers Survey 2010
Of course, there's something to be said of social games' accessibility. In other words, they don't exactly require the amount of dedication or focus that console or traditional PC games do, which definitely contributes to the amount of social gamers. Though, if there is any metric that shows whether social games allow for true dedication, it's cold hard cash.

According to Newzoo, of the 115 million--71 percent of total--gamers who spend money on their favorite hobby, 25 percent spend their hard-earned dough on social games. With over 28.7 million players nationwide paying for in-game currency (at sometimes admittedly unreasonable rates), it's a no-brainer that social games are becoming a mutli-billion dollar industry.

These numbers beg the question: is it only a matter of time, with digital distribution becoming more robust every year (62 percent of console gamers pay for games and digital game content), before all games are free-to-play, taking the microtransaction model that social games seem to have mastered?