THE RESULTS OF THE SURVEY ARE IN:
__________________________________________________________________________________
I recently posted a brief 10 question survey on both the mybroadband gaming forum, and the general gaming forum at mygaming.co.za. Using a basic account with a popular survey solutions provider, I was able to ask 10 questions with a limit of 100 responses. Here are some of the statistics on the responses:
General
The survey was posted at 21:00 on September 7th and hit the target response collection at 09:50 on September 10th. Thus it took, according to my dodgy mathematical ability, a total of 60 hours and 50 minutes to gather the requested responses.
100 responses for 10 questions is potentially 1000 answers. It was possible to skip questions if you didn’t feel like answering them, but only a single question was skipped in total, thus there were 999 answers gathered. I consider this to be generally ‘awesome’.
Some Demographics
It’s probably not unexpected, but it may be regarded as sad, that 95% of respondents are male. Only 5% are female. Nobody has any gender identification issues (this was an option).
Perhaps surprisingly, only 3% of respondents were 17 years old or younger, which can’t be right when you consider how many people in this age bracket are applying to your World of Warcraft guild right now. These statistics are probably not accurate with regards to the totality of the gaming population, but are more specific to gamers who are online and on these forums (mybroadband & mygaming – you can thank me later if per chance you didn’t already have this info
But im sure you must have.). The majority of respondents were 18-30 years old (64%). 33% were 30-60. In hindsight the question is slightly flawed and anyone who is 30 would need to consider themselves as either a “young†30 (in the 18-30 bracket) or an “old†30 (in the 30-40 bracket). There are no gamers over the age of 60 in the response group.
There are gamers in every province, but 52% of the ones responding to this survey are based in Gauteng. Half that number (26%) are from the Western Cape, and 12% are from Kwa-Zulu Natal. 90% of gamers are thus from these 3 provinces! The remaining 6 provinces make up a paltry 10% of the gaming population.
The Attitudes towards Online Purchasing
91% of gamers have purchased games or gaming accessories and equipment online
9% of gamers haven’t purchased anything online as yet, but are interested to give it a try
Nobody has an outright fear or rejection of purchasing online, which may be an indicator that the traditional security fears associated with online purchasing are either no longer as relevant and diminishing in relevance, or not applicable to the gaming community.
When asked what they key drawbacks of purchasing online are, the clear and most common response was the amount of time is took to get good delivered (66.7%). This was closely followed by, and also closely related to, the charges and expense associated with getting the good delivered (44.4%). This question had multiple responses enabled and these were the 2 most dominant answers. The next most relevant drawback was considered to be the fact that goods can’t be checked out prior to the purchase, somewhat implying that a first time purchase from an online store could be regarded as a leap of faith with the onus firmly on the online shop to deliver on expectations to secure any potential repeat business.
The key reason as to why respondents to the survey purchase online is convenience. 70% of respondents enjoy being able to browse and shop at any time of the day or night. 66% of respondents also enjoyed a wider selection of goods online, and 64% thought that prices were more competitive online. Nothing earth shattering there then, but some reinforcement of existing ideas.
When it comes to money, 33% of gamers spend less than R2500 per annum on their hobby (!?). The majority of people (39%) spend between R2500 and R6000 annually. The remainder – 28% spend more than R6000 annually.
The following calculation is very fluffy, but if we look at this from a numbers perspective, assuming 39 people spend only R2500, 28 people spend only R6000, and 33 spend R1000 on average, we can conclude that conservatively, every group of 100 gamers spend just under R300,000 annually. Based on an equally fluffy figure I read of there being an estimated 400,000 “gamers†in South Africa (a little under 1% of the population), the size of this market in Rand terms in South Africa could be R1200000000 (R1.2 billion rand), or more. I’ve said this only as an interesting point to ponder, as I haven’t read any other sources that confirm spend specifically on gaming equipment, accessories and games anywhere else. A sample of 100 responses is nowhere near enough to accurately depict the behavior of 400,000 supposed people in a less-than-stellar economy – but it’s still an interesting thought! Even at half at that figure, it’s still impressive. Moving on…
Popular Gaming Platforms and our Favourite Genres
The majority of us (42%) have 2 platforms on which we game. 28% of us have only 1 platform, 21% have 3 platforms. 9% of respondents have 4 or more platforms! When asked to choose which platform we spend the most time gaming on, the PC was the outright winner at 79%. This was followed by the Xbox at 11%, which only narrowly edged out the PS3 at 9%. Only 1 person in the entire group spent most of their time gaming on the Nintendo Wii. The PS2 had no dedicated followers at all, which was interesting given that there is still quite a lot of support for the platform and new games coming out for it – in any event, us folks on the Internet here, don’t like the PS2!
The last question asked you what your favorite genre of game was. I got the most feedback on this question in that many people didn’t like having to choose their favorite genre – this was quite a tough thing to do for some. In addition, I realise now that it could be quite possible for people to determine that their favorite game is in a certain genre and actually be incorrect so I may need to factor in a % error. An example would be in people understanding the difference between MMORPG and RPG. According to the raw stats though, the majority of respondents (31%) like FPS games the most. RPG’s follow incredibly closely with 30% of the vote. MMORPG’s are at 16%, RTS only garnered 14% of the vote, Sports and Action/Adventure both had 4% of the vote each, 1 person enjoyed fighting games the most, and surprisingly simulation games didn’t get a single vote, which makes you wonder if The Sims is really that successful in SA?
To Conclude
These are the basic statistics that are available without interrogating the data in depth. If anyone feels like making an article out of this I could spend more time getting some other funky statistical results by looking at the specifics (like the favorite genre of games for people over 40 etc.). While the survey was limited to 100 responses, in total 109 people answered it. Thanks to everyone who took part – I hope you’ve found the results to be as interesting as I have. This exercise has also helped me understand how I can build a better survey next time around, and if people are interested in partaking in another survey then I’m happy to take some suggestions on the sort of stuff you would like to know
I may even enhance this to allow for a few more questions (without making it onerus!) and unlimited responses. Drop a note in the forum and we’ll do something else.
Cheers guys,
Mark
_______________________________________________________________________________
Hi guys,
I was recommended to this site from the gaming forum on the mybroadband.co.za website. Basically I'm exploring the way in which SA gamers buy gaming related stuff (games, consoles, hardware etc) online as well as other stuff like which genres we enjoy the most etc.
I put together a very basic 10-question survey on SurveyMonkey to collect the responses. I'm aiming to hit 100 responses, and currently I have 47. So 53 more. Once i hit that number I'll post the feedback on both forums to give everyone a bit on insight into what other gamers in SA like to play, shop etc.
The Survey can be completed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZQTL7XV or simply by clicking here
Thanks in advance for your contributions.
Cheers,
Mark
__________________________________________________________________________________
I recently posted a brief 10 question survey on both the mybroadband gaming forum, and the general gaming forum at mygaming.co.za. Using a basic account with a popular survey solutions provider, I was able to ask 10 questions with a limit of 100 responses. Here are some of the statistics on the responses:
General
The survey was posted at 21:00 on September 7th and hit the target response collection at 09:50 on September 10th. Thus it took, according to my dodgy mathematical ability, a total of 60 hours and 50 minutes to gather the requested responses.
100 responses for 10 questions is potentially 1000 answers. It was possible to skip questions if you didn’t feel like answering them, but only a single question was skipped in total, thus there were 999 answers gathered. I consider this to be generally ‘awesome’.
Some Demographics
It’s probably not unexpected, but it may be regarded as sad, that 95% of respondents are male. Only 5% are female. Nobody has any gender identification issues (this was an option).
Perhaps surprisingly, only 3% of respondents were 17 years old or younger, which can’t be right when you consider how many people in this age bracket are applying to your World of Warcraft guild right now. These statistics are probably not accurate with regards to the totality of the gaming population, but are more specific to gamers who are online and on these forums (mybroadband & mygaming – you can thank me later if per chance you didn’t already have this info
But im sure you must have.). The majority of respondents were 18-30 years old (64%). 33% were 30-60. In hindsight the question is slightly flawed and anyone who is 30 would need to consider themselves as either a “young†30 (in the 18-30 bracket) or an “old†30 (in the 30-40 bracket). There are no gamers over the age of 60 in the response group. There are gamers in every province, but 52% of the ones responding to this survey are based in Gauteng. Half that number (26%) are from the Western Cape, and 12% are from Kwa-Zulu Natal. 90% of gamers are thus from these 3 provinces! The remaining 6 provinces make up a paltry 10% of the gaming population.
The Attitudes towards Online Purchasing
91% of gamers have purchased games or gaming accessories and equipment online
9% of gamers haven’t purchased anything online as yet, but are interested to give it a try
Nobody has an outright fear or rejection of purchasing online, which may be an indicator that the traditional security fears associated with online purchasing are either no longer as relevant and diminishing in relevance, or not applicable to the gaming community.
When asked what they key drawbacks of purchasing online are, the clear and most common response was the amount of time is took to get good delivered (66.7%). This was closely followed by, and also closely related to, the charges and expense associated with getting the good delivered (44.4%). This question had multiple responses enabled and these were the 2 most dominant answers. The next most relevant drawback was considered to be the fact that goods can’t be checked out prior to the purchase, somewhat implying that a first time purchase from an online store could be regarded as a leap of faith with the onus firmly on the online shop to deliver on expectations to secure any potential repeat business.
The key reason as to why respondents to the survey purchase online is convenience. 70% of respondents enjoy being able to browse and shop at any time of the day or night. 66% of respondents also enjoyed a wider selection of goods online, and 64% thought that prices were more competitive online. Nothing earth shattering there then, but some reinforcement of existing ideas.
When it comes to money, 33% of gamers spend less than R2500 per annum on their hobby (!?). The majority of people (39%) spend between R2500 and R6000 annually. The remainder – 28% spend more than R6000 annually.
The following calculation is very fluffy, but if we look at this from a numbers perspective, assuming 39 people spend only R2500, 28 people spend only R6000, and 33 spend R1000 on average, we can conclude that conservatively, every group of 100 gamers spend just under R300,000 annually. Based on an equally fluffy figure I read of there being an estimated 400,000 “gamers†in South Africa (a little under 1% of the population), the size of this market in Rand terms in South Africa could be R1200000000 (R1.2 billion rand), or more. I’ve said this only as an interesting point to ponder, as I haven’t read any other sources that confirm spend specifically on gaming equipment, accessories and games anywhere else. A sample of 100 responses is nowhere near enough to accurately depict the behavior of 400,000 supposed people in a less-than-stellar economy – but it’s still an interesting thought! Even at half at that figure, it’s still impressive. Moving on…
Popular Gaming Platforms and our Favourite Genres
The majority of us (42%) have 2 platforms on which we game. 28% of us have only 1 platform, 21% have 3 platforms. 9% of respondents have 4 or more platforms! When asked to choose which platform we spend the most time gaming on, the PC was the outright winner at 79%. This was followed by the Xbox at 11%, which only narrowly edged out the PS3 at 9%. Only 1 person in the entire group spent most of their time gaming on the Nintendo Wii. The PS2 had no dedicated followers at all, which was interesting given that there is still quite a lot of support for the platform and new games coming out for it – in any event, us folks on the Internet here, don’t like the PS2!
The last question asked you what your favorite genre of game was. I got the most feedback on this question in that many people didn’t like having to choose their favorite genre – this was quite a tough thing to do for some. In addition, I realise now that it could be quite possible for people to determine that their favorite game is in a certain genre and actually be incorrect so I may need to factor in a % error. An example would be in people understanding the difference between MMORPG and RPG. According to the raw stats though, the majority of respondents (31%) like FPS games the most. RPG’s follow incredibly closely with 30% of the vote. MMORPG’s are at 16%, RTS only garnered 14% of the vote, Sports and Action/Adventure both had 4% of the vote each, 1 person enjoyed fighting games the most, and surprisingly simulation games didn’t get a single vote, which makes you wonder if The Sims is really that successful in SA?
To Conclude
These are the basic statistics that are available without interrogating the data in depth. If anyone feels like making an article out of this I could spend more time getting some other funky statistical results by looking at the specifics (like the favorite genre of games for people over 40 etc.). While the survey was limited to 100 responses, in total 109 people answered it. Thanks to everyone who took part – I hope you’ve found the results to be as interesting as I have. This exercise has also helped me understand how I can build a better survey next time around, and if people are interested in partaking in another survey then I’m happy to take some suggestions on the sort of stuff you would like to know
I may even enhance this to allow for a few more questions (without making it onerus!) and unlimited responses. Drop a note in the forum and we’ll do something else. Cheers guys,
Mark
_______________________________________________________________________________
Hi guys,
I was recommended to this site from the gaming forum on the mybroadband.co.za website. Basically I'm exploring the way in which SA gamers buy gaming related stuff (games, consoles, hardware etc) online as well as other stuff like which genres we enjoy the most etc.
I put together a very basic 10-question survey on SurveyMonkey to collect the responses. I'm aiming to hit 100 responses, and currently I have 47. So 53 more. Once i hit that number I'll post the feedback on both forums to give everyone a bit on insight into what other gamers in SA like to play, shop etc.
The Survey can be completed at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZQTL7XV or simply by clicking here
Thanks in advance for your contributions.
Cheers,
Mark
Last edited:
Nearly there - 24 more needed 
