According to an NPD report based on a survey of 20,000 gamers, a specific group of gamer dubbed ‘extreme gamers’ spend more hours gaming each week than they spend at work. In other words 45 hours a week playing games.
This and other fascinating facts can all be found after the jump. Boing!
I was amazed at that figure. 45 hours? Sheesh, do these guys have lives? They must, because I’d expect a minimum of 70 hours gaming (roughly what I’m doing at the moment) each week to earn the title of ‘extreme gamer’. Or maybe I’d fit into the more appropriate, ‘clinically insane gamer’ category?
NPD also reported that ‘extreme gamers’ buy 24 games every 3 months, that’s 8 games a month for all you mathematics geniuses. Granted, these ‘extreme gamers’ only make up 3% of the total 174 million biomass of PC, Mac, console and handheld gamers out there, but that’s still 5.22 million people. As a very rough calculation based on the 8 games a month figure and $50 a game, I’d say the ‘extreme gamers’ alone are spending $2,000,000,000 a month, roughly £3.24 at the current conversion rate.
Along with the ‘extreme gamers’, NPD identified 6 other variants of the gamer species: avid PC gamers, console gamers, online PC gamers, offline PC gamers, young heavy gamers and secondary gamers. Here’s how they all break up percentage wise in a (and I’m so sorry about this) pie chart that I made.
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9 responses so far ↓
1 Diortem // Aug 13, 2008 at 11:05 am
technically, if you play games, you are a gamer. HOWEVER, I highly doubt mindsweeper was the reason for this… After all, how avid can that be? Add to that, how online could it be?
2 Tom Sawyer PhD // Aug 13, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Eoco, you play 70 hours per week ? Wow, do you even know what a girl looks like ?
3 Eoco // Aug 13, 2008 at 1:18 pm
@Tom Sawyer PhD
Girl…? Isn’t that the 360 peripheral thing?
Ok, I just Googled it and it appears to be a 1998 drama film starring Dominique Swain, Sean Patrick Flanery, Summer Phoenix, Tara Reid and Selma Blair. I’m not really sure what that looks like, so I guess my answer to your question is ‘no’.
Also, how do you know I’m not a girl?
4 Sarow // Aug 13, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I’m hoping hes joking. I mean these articles don’t write themselves you know.
5 Tom Sawyer PhD // Aug 13, 2008 at 1:42 pm
@Eoco
How do I know you’re not a 1998 drama film ?
6 Eoco // Aug 13, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Damn you!
7 boringsupreez // Aug 13, 2008 at 6:53 pm
I play a 360 and a PC, along with a buch of old consoles. The amount of time spent playing depends on how recently I have gotten a new game.
8 Huluvu // Aug 14, 2008 at 8:57 am
odd pie chart.. extreme gamers are neither pc gamers nor console gamers?
9 Granite // Aug 15, 2008 at 6:32 am
Obviously, extreme gamers use hand-helds because they’re our snowboarding, bungie jumping, mountain climbing and parachuting.
The PC is obviously the most popular if you include everyone who plays anything on it. The problem is trying to draw the line of what is a “gamer”? It was easier when most people didn’t play games, but it’s tricky now it’s got mass appeal. I mean what defines a “viewer” or a “reader”? Does reading my e-mails mark me as a fan of literature?
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