US based research firm NPD has published the results of its latest study which questioned 18,872 US gamers aged as young as 2 and older. <\/p>\n
While it found the average us gamer spends about thirteen hours per week gaming, it found a growing contingent of so called “extreme gamers” who spend around 48 hours per week gaming. <\/p>\n
Participants were sorted into seven categories: Extreme Gamers, Avid PC Gamers, Heavy Portable Gamers, Console Gamers, Online PC Gamers, Offline PC Gamers, and Secondary Gamers.<\/p>\n
The study found that time spent gaming per week by PC gamers had increased by six percent, while console gamers are spending nine percent more time glued to their screens than they were last year. In contrast, handheld gamers are spending sixteen percent less time playing games than they were the same time last year. <\/p>\n
While last year’s study found that the average gamer was aged 31, this year found the average age to be 32. With one year having passed since the last survey, this just reflects that the average gamer has aged a year, as opposed to suggesting that older people are now getting into gaming. It also found that people from the “avid PC gamer” and “offline PC gamer” groups were the oldest, and 19% of gamers falling into these categories were 42 years or older. <\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, avid PC gamers are the strongest supporters of digital distribution, having bought 30 percent of their games through the likes of Steam, Direct2Drive or Impulse over the past three months. On the whole, Digital distribution is on the rise, and the study reports that 17 percent of games were bought online in the last year, rising from 16 percent in the previous year.<\/p>\n