Average US gamer spends 13 hours per week playing games

A new study by NPD Group found that U.S. gamers ages 2 and older spend 13 hours per week playing games, up from 12.3 hours in 2009. The average age of gamers increased slightly to 32 years, and the firm also found that Extreme Gamers, a segment totaling 4 percent of the US gaming population, spend 48.5 hours a week playing games. Here's the full PR snip:

According to Gamer Segmentation 2010, the most recent report from leading market research company, The NPD Group, the Extreme Gamers segment, which represents 4 percent of the total U.S. gaming population, spend 48.5 hours a week playing games. Overall, U.S. gamers ages 2 and older spend 13 hours per week playing games, up from 12.3 hours in 2009.

The study, which provides a detailed look at the behaviors of gamers, including download purchases, micro-transactions, and prices consumers are willing to pay for digital downloads, contains three years of trended data as well as insight into consoles, smartphones, portable gaming platforms, portable digital music players, laptops, and personal desktops. Based on these behaviors, gamers are grouped into seven distinct segments: Extreme Gamers, Avid PC Gamers, Heavy Portable Gamers, Console Gamers, Online PC Gamers, Offline PC Gamers, and Secondary Gamers.

When looking at the number of hours gamers spend per week playing video games, hours spent playing both console and PC games showed a marked increase over last year's study, with console games increasing 9 percent and PC games increasing 6 percent. The number of hours gamers spent playing portable games saw a decline of 16 percent.

The average age of gamers increased slightly over last year from 31 years of age in the 2009 study to 32 years in this year’s study. Avid PC Gamers and Offline PC Gamers, comprising 11 percent and 8 percent of the gaming population, respectively, are the oldest segments with an average age for both of 42 years.

"With these kinds of shifts in the composition of the gaming consumer and changes in gaming behavior, it’s clear that the need to understand gamers and their purchase patterns remains critical information to those that develop, market and sell games," said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group.

Methodology
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.