Is having someone else to play against is what draws you to online gaming? What if you don’t have an XBox? Then, you are part of the target audience online gaming startup Power Challenge that just raised an $8 million from Silicon Valley VC firm Benchmark Capital. 

Power Challenge, whose primary web-game Power Football allows for console-like soccer action, says it will use the cash infusion to expand its titles and improve marketing for the Sweden-based firm, which wants to use social networking among gamers as its primary lure.

Power Challenge CEO Johan Christenson said via phone last week that Benchmark’s previous investment experience in social-gaming entities like Second Life should provide a huge assist to Power Challenge’s attempt to build its reach via its built-in community aspects like online league play.

“Our main push [with the funding] will be to produce a wider range of sports games,” said Christenson, who said his site has an average of 1 million active users, but acknowledged it will need something more like Madden 2007 to really appeal to North American gamers, who use the term football for a sport played with helmets. Power Challenge’s game does require a software download, but Christenson said the experience works fine over connections as slow as a 28.8 K modem.