Research firm Parks Associates has published a new study according to which online gaming is still the most popular activity for US adults, surpassing other activities like watching videos or visiting social networking sites.

The gaming industry can rejoice once again: after surpassing the Hollywood film industry in terms of annual revenues, it has now been declared the king of Internet activities, at least for the US territory.

Parks Associates’ Casual Gaming Market Update report has found that thirty-four percent of U.S. adult Internet users play online games on a weekly basis, compared with 29% who watch short online videos and 19% who visit social networking sites with the same frequency.

It is well known the fact that gaming is the second most popular activity on the Windows platform (which dominates the PC market with an install base estimated to reach 1 billion users by the end of 2008), after online browsing. However, the recent study indicates that online gaming is a component that might dethrone the simple Web-browsing in the future:

“Despite the growing popularity of YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook, gaming remains the king of online entertainment, driven largely by casual gaming activities,” said James Kuai, a research analyst at Parks Associates. “Gaming also has business advantages. Unlike sites for social networking and video streaming, which rely solely on advertising revenue, casual gaming has more mature and heterogeneous revenue models, including web-based and in-game advertising, try-before-you-buy, subscriptions, and micro-transactions.”

According to Parks Associates, the year-over-year growth rate for frequent online gamers was 79%, significantly higher than the growth rate for users of social networking (46%). However, the growth rate for frequent users of video streaming sites was 123%, which could pose a significant challenge to the gaming industry in capturing the online leisure time of Internet users.

“The casual gaming industry cannot rest on its laurels,” Kuai added. “In order to counter the growing competition from other online activities, the industry needs to continue to grow its fan base and find ways to better monetize its existing audience.”

Data provided by The ESA (Entertainment Software Association) reveal that sixty-seven percent of American heads of households play computer and video games. In 2007, 92 percent of computer game buyers and 80 percent of console game buyers were over the age of 18.