63% of US are gamers

[Jafo]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...deo-games.html

63 percent of US population now plays video games, says report

By Ben Kuchera | Published: December 12, 2007 - 12:58PM CT

While most of the press reporting on games focuses on the more sensational and negative aspects of the hobby, the NPD Group has just released Expanding the Games Market, a report that shows that an increasing number of people see gaming as a viable and fun hobby. The report also notes that while gaming might be a more isolated activity for the "hardcore" market, most gamers use their hobby as a way to connect with their friends and family.

The sample included 5,039 members of the NPD Group's online consumer panel, and the majority of the respondents said that games were a good way to alleviate stress and unwind. Impressive for the gaming industry was that the stress-relieving aspect of the hobby was mostly seen in older gamers ranging from 15 to 65 years of age.

"The new type of game experiences brought to the market over the past several years are succeeding in reaching a broader audience. The challenge for the industry is that consumers are a fickle group, and with the great variety of options pulling at their limited free time, they're going to be easily distracted unless something really compels them to stay with gaming," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier in a statement. "To reach these less-involved consumers, the industry has to work even harder, but doing so can produce great rewards."

Nintendo is one company that has realized, as is evidenced in the disruptive influence of the Wii and DS, two systems that went after a wider, more casual audience with great financial rewards.

NPD's study stands in contrast to the two other reports recently released. Last week's Hill & Knowlton report buried pages of positive data about gaming in order to focus on a headline about regulation. Also last week, the National Institute for Media and the Family video game report card berated retailers for allowing children to purchased M-rated content while ignoring data that showed compliance with R- and unrated movie guidelines were significantly lower.

With the data showing that 63 percent of the US population is playing games—and 30 percent are playing more this year than last year—gaming is on the move. This acceptance of gaming, along with the expansion of demographics that are spending time and money on gaming, has made some in the retail world take note, and it's expected that more stores in the future will begin allocating more shelf space to games and related hardware.

Gaming is already a mass-market hobby, with people of all ages picking up controllers and portables. Unfortunately, the mainstream media does not seem fully aware of how the mainstream itself thinks about gaming. Once that happens, many of the industry's current PR problems are likely to be alleviated.

Didn't think it was that high of a percent.

[bajor27]

that number seems far too high in my opinion. I'm wondering if they count things like spider solitaire as a video game

considering I'm pretty sure slightly more than half of the population is female, many are really old, and many are really young - I have a hard time believing this survey

I'm sure it's a high percentage, and probably much higher now than even 2 or 3 years ago thanks to the Wii and DS.

Perhaps they just accepted a very low frequency, like 63% play once a month, or at least once in the past 3 months. Who knows, but I would assume it's skewed higher than it should be somehow.

[sj001]

Hmmm, seems high to me, I know a LOT of gamers, but I would say the VAST majority fall into the male ages 10-40 or so... obviously there are PLENTY of exceptions. Games tend to fall lower on the scale for females unfortunately, probably due to their content.

[ironrefault]

The Atari generation is aging, and every generation after that has had a growing gamer presence. So, I can see how the 63% is close to the actual. I would guess maybe 55-59%.

[reiella]

Well, here's my gripe with the report. The sample was taken from the online consumer pool.

So, sure 63% of US people who are online, are gamers.

[tru_to_blu]

The numbers are still high.

[Nathan_Drake]

Those numbers are definitely too high. It is standard practice to generalize from a random sample onto the whole population, but the sample is far from random in this case. It would be nice to see some actual statistics in the report instead of them just giving us a percentage (which doesn't really tell us anything).

[Quad]

My guess would be between 35-40 percent of the population are gamers.

[Rustmonsteru]

Originally Posted by reiella

Well, here's my gripe with the report. The sample was taken from the online consumer pool.

So, sure 63% of US people who are online, are gamers.

Exactly. 63% is way to high for the populace at large; My mom plays a little handheld solitare game & my dad plays tetris style reflex games on his computer quite often, buy I wouldn't consider them gamers.

[silypete]

Originally Posted by Quad

My guess would be between 35-40 percent of the population are gamers.

this seems alot more realistic

[hardcore_canadian]

Originally Posted by reiella

Well, here's my gripe with the report. The sample was taken from the online consumer pool.

So, sure 63% of US people who are online, are gamers.

63% of people that wouldn't mind wasting their Time Online are Gamers

[tru_to_blu]

I dont about 63%, but the numbers are still up there.