Research firm NPD Group released a new study that indicates gamers now log more hours of playing time compared to last year, with overall gaming continuing to increase.
As part of the "Gamer Segmentation 2010" report, it was found that people 2 years old and up spend an average of 13 hours per week playing games. The group discovered that this number is an increase from 12.3 hours each week reported last year. Console gaming use increased the most, while PC gaming increased only slightly.
The biggest loser year-over-year from 2009 to 2010 has been the portable gaming sector, which is led by the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable. Both companies face increased pressure from the Apple iPhone and other smartphones that are being used for casual gaming. Nintendo has already stated it expects to enter a gaming war with Apple sometime in the near future.
The "extreme gamers" category, a small segment of the overall game population, logs a whopping 48 hours per week playing games. Just 4% of total gamers fall into this extreme gamers category, but these gamers are helping drive the used games market -- especially since extreme gamers have the lowest reported income.
"If they're [extreme gamers] buying/receiving 34 games in the past three months," NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier told G4TV, "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."
NPD also broke down gamers into the following categories: Avid PC gamers, heavy portable gamers, console gamers, offline PC gamers, online PC gamers, and secondary gamers. Around 11% of gamers are avid PC gamers and 9% of gamers are considered offline PC gamers.
All of these stats are positive for the gaming industry as a whole, as video games continue to become more popular and draw in more consumer dollars than ever.
