4% of Gamers Are Playing 48.5 Hours Per Week

[Terminator02]

According to NPD Group's "Gamer Segmentation 2010" report, the "extreme gamer" category of consumers who actively play games are playing 48.5 hours per week. That's over two days out of the whole week. How many "extreme gamers" are there? Who are they?

NPD Group breaks down types of game players into a number of categories, including: Extreme Gamers, Avid PC Gamers, Heavy Portable Gamers, Console Gamers, Online PC Gamers, Offline PC Gamers and Secondary Gamers. The report says console and PC use is up, handhelds are down.

The "extreme gamer" category is small, representing only 4% of the total gaming populous, and are typically 29-years-old. What might surprise you is that not all of them are male. The NPD Group told me that while 66% -- in essence, the majority -- are male, 34% of "extreme gamers" are actually women. That number has increased over the past few years, from just 27% in 2008.

Interestingly, they also found "extreme gamers" had the lowest average houshold income, but they purchased 34 games over a three month period, compared to a six-game average overall, suggesting World of Warcraft is not responsible.

"If they're [extreme gamers] buying/receiving 34 games in the past three months," explained NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier over e-mail to me today, "that is a little over 11-per-month. At $50 a game, that would be $550 -- quite a chunk of change for folks with more limited disposable income. So it's reasonable to assume that they're participating heavily in the used market as a means to make their gaming dollars stretch a little further."

Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 games usually retail for $59.99 at launch, but it's not common for used versions to be available for $49.99. Wii games, with some exceptions, launch at $49.99.

Overall, however, game time is on the rise. Gamers two-years-old and above are reportedly spending 13 hours a week participating with video games, compared to 12.3 hours in 2009.

For reference, here's now the NPD Group collected their data:

"In January 2010, The NPD Group fielded an online survey that was completed by18,872 consumer panel members ages 2 and older. Responses for individuals ages 13 and older were captured directly, and responses for individuals ages 2-12 were captured by “surrogate reporting,” whereby a parent/guardian brings the child to the computer to answer questions, and the child then answers either with or without the guardian’s assistance. Final survey data was weighted and balanced to represent the U.S. population of individuals ages 2 and older."

Source

omg, that's a lot of games

 

[DeadLocked]

woo I only play 5-12 hours a week more during holidays.

 

[logical thinker]

"34% of them are women"

This cool story

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BRO INCORPORATED

 

[BlackDave]

Woaw I got school and Work taking up most my time so my gaming time is more like around 11pm-2am (if I have the energy to stay up that late)

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

Wut.

I used to play probably twice as much, but since a couple of months now I have almost quit gaming. No idea why, I just don't feel the need to game anymore.

On another note: 1/3 of hardcore gamers are female? That's A LOT more than I expected...

 

[Infinite Zero]

I'm part of the 35% of gamer girls..

 

[Zerousen]

The "extreme gamer" category is small, representing only 4% of the total gaming populous, and are typically 29-years-old. What might surprise you is that not all of them are male. The NPD Group told me that while 66% -- in essence, the majority -- are male, 34% of "extreme gamers" are actually women. That number has increased over the past few years, from just 27% in 2008."

 

[nl255]

Is it still considered playing if you put the game in standby mode and things still happen in the game, such as the thing where you can get pins in The World Ends With You by being near someone else who has their DS and copy of the game with them and have it in standby mode? Or how about the pokewalker? You could easily "play" Pokemon for 12-14 hours every day just by always keeping the pokewalker on you through the day regardless of whatever else you are doing.

 

[BlackDave]

Is it still considered playing if you put the game in standby mode and things still happen in the game, such as the thing where you can get pins in The World Ends With You by being near someone else who has their DS and copy of the game with them and have it in standby mode? Or how about the pokewalker? You could easily "play" Pokemon for 12-14 hours every day just by always keeping the pokewalker on you through the day regardless of whatever else you are doing.

That's details only

 

[Raika]

That's just crazy...
And if their budgets are limited... Piracy.

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

Wow, never knew that many girls are hardcore gamers. It's hard to find them around this part of the world though

 

[Lubbo]

well, when i played WoW my time just flew away i think i had about 45 days played time on my 70 lock back in burning crusade and 20 on my 70 shammy so thats like 2 months

 

[o0ICE0o]

So... if 66% are male, and 34% are female, is the extra 1% of the 101% both?

 

[Terminator02]

So... if 66% are male, and 34% are female, is the extra 1% of the 101% both?

the numbers were probably rounded

 

[jalaneme]

48 hours a week? lol i sped around 34-35 hours a week playing video games, i buy on average 3-4 games a month and hardly touch them most of the time, i have around 80 ps3 games between me and my partner