Online social games and free-to-play games, especially those such as FarmVille on Facebook, have helped the number of people who play video games to more than double to 135 million from 56 million in 2008, according to a new report from Parks Associates.

The research firm's new report, Trends in Digital Gaming: Free-to-Play, Social, and Mobile Games, finds that many new gamers are casual gamers who have been attracted by social and free games on smartphones and tablets. "Such a big increase is caused by an increase in gaming that affects most demographics and particularly older demographics who had never played games before -- and still do not consider themselves as gamers," says the report's author Pietro Macchiarella.

For the report, Parks conducted an online survey of 2,000 adults and 500 teens who play at least one hour of games per month on any platform.

Facebook gamers who spend money average about $29 monthly, more than free-to-play game spenders (about $21 monthly). These compare favorably to the $24 to $27 spent monthly, on average, by incidental and occasional gamers on new console games. "When asked about spending for non-physical gaming content, teens generally tend to spend more than older generations, Macchiarella says."As for mobile platforms, the use of tablets for gaming is also very impressive," Macchiarella continues. "Tablets could disrupt the industry as more complex games become available. The most immediate effect will be on portable consoles (such as the Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita, which hits the market later this month). Is there still a market for them? The answer is yes, for the time being. Controls, quality of games, and brand are strong differentiators at the moment for handheld consoles, but things may change as tablets create their own ecosystem" as is Amazon with its Kindle Fire.

The takeaway for game publishers and developers? "There are elements in the free-to-play model that should be adopted by the whole industry. Traditional retail-based games that did not have online components could not earn more than their selling prices," Macchiarella says. "The main benefit of free-to-play is instead that there is virtually no limit to how much a free-to-play game can earn. While I am not advocating that every game should be free-to-play, I think that developers and publishers should maximize the benefit of having additional downloadable content (maps, new missions/levels, virtual items)."

Free-to-play games have also shown that a game's audience "can be greatly expanded by eliminating the disincentive constituted by purchase price," he says. "Some would never pay $60 for a game at retail, but they often end up spending similar amounts per month on social games. If publishers want to sell to these gamers, they should definitely consider free-to-play."

From the article, "Social and online games drive growth in audience" by Mike Snider