Over recent years there has been an ever increasing demand worldwide for online multiplayer games. This growth has been fuelled by the booming skill games sector which has evolved from being a niche market just a few years ago, to very much a mainstream player today.

I always considered typical online gamers to be young males playing the ‘hardcore’ console type games. Although this market does exist and it is itself a massive one, the skill games sector has really flourished over recent years and appeals to a much broader demographic.

Skill games or addictive online games, as they are sometimes known, are browser based games which are played in a tournament format. Each participant pays a cash entry fee to play and with a cash or merchandise prize going to the winner or winners of the tournament.

Unlike the often complex console games, skill games last for only a few minutes at a time and have only a few very simple rules to learn before playing. For these reasons, skill games can be enjoyed during a break at work or at any other time when you have a few minutes to spare. In fact, 80% of people who have played addictive online games during the workday felt better focused as a result of this periodic mental break. What’s more, an amazing 72% relied on game breaks to reduce job-related stress.

The simplicity and rapid completion of this gaming type is a key reason why these online multiplayer games appeal to a much broader age range than the far more complicated and immersive console games. In fact, skill gamers tend to be both men and women between the ages of 35 and 65, with a slight demographic skew towards women. Although this is the main participating age range, people of all ages, from all over the world, play in there millions. Such is the demand for the playing of these games, there are now skill gaming sites with hundreds of thousands of individuals playing games online at any one time.