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NPD Group: 22 percent of gamers are young and heavy

Destructoid writes: "A new report by the NPD Group that Gamasutra is carrying called "Games Segmentation 2008," shows that the majority of videogame players are what the group classifies as "Young Heavy Gamers." This classification of gamers that compose 22 percent of the spectrum are not necessarily interested in the larger consoles. In fact, they favor portable systems like the Nintendo DS and PlayStation Portable. They do not have the largest buying power though, as "Extreme Gamers" and their mighty three percent control the majority of the purchasing power of the market. Here's a snippet of the classifications:

'Of the 174 million gamers in the U.S., 3 percent are classified as "Extreme Gamers," 9 percent as "Avid PC Gamers," 17 percent as "Console Gamers," 14 percent as "Online PC Gamers," 15 percent as "Offline PC Gamers," 22 percent as "Young Heavy Gamers," and 20 percent as Secondary Gamers.'

Just for reference, Extreme Gamers spend over 22 hours a week playing games, while Console Gamers only spend 8.2 hours glued to the television set. Personally, I have never been a big fan of these blockbuster studies. I happen to fall into several different categories, all of which are probably the wrong label. This information will be used by publishers, so be prepared for some more mini-games on portable devices in the months to come."
nicholsonb - contributor
Published: 505 days 10 hours ago | News | Gaming | Industry News
 
 

Showing: 1 - 14 of 14 Comments
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Kigmal - 505 days 10 hours ago
1 -
Click on open zone to see those "young and heavy gamers" in their natural habitats.
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kingme71 - 505 days 10 hours ago
1.1 -
Lol. That was pretty funny.

Just don't get too close to the cages.
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DaKid - 505 days 10 hours ago
1.2 -
+ bubbles

funny stuff
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Tomdc - 505 days 9 hours ago
1.3 -
40 percent of americans are heavy...
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spandexxking - 505 days 5 hours ago
1.4 -
actually, someone posted a link somewhere, that said 63% of americans were overweight. not that i think its true but if it was, thats alot of heavy people!
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CadDad - 505 days 9 hours ago
2 - Extreme?
I prefer "seasoned", "classic", or "epic" gamer myself. ;)

-CadDad
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Tony240ZT - 505 days 9 hours ago
3 - In other news
33% of americans are over weight

http://www.healthgoods.com/...

This means on average american gamers are less likely to be fat than your average american.
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solidsnakus - 505 days 9 hours ago
4 -
fatass and heavy are 2 diffrent things, i demand for poster to re-name the title appropriately so
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bunbun777 - 505 days 9 hours ago
5 - DING DING! Time to Weigh In!
5'9" 150 pounds.
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bunbun777 - 505 days 7 hours ago
5.1 - oh thats not what we are doing....ugh
okay new stats:

avg hours spent playing games (90% console currently) in a week:

18-22
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Fishy Fingers - 505 days 9 hours ago
6 -
NPD Group: 99.9% of our surveys are a waste of time.
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Cysquatch - 505 days 8 hours ago
7 - then 78% are.....
Old and heavy? =)
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orakga - 505 days 7 hours ago
8 - LOL
Such a misleading title... I think 90% of the people went there expecting a child obesity article.

(un)fortunately, the article here uses "heavy" as in "heavy use", not "weight-heavy". But yeah, if only 22% of gamers were heavy, that would mean gamers are less fat than the average American. But that's not what the data shows.
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xplosneer - 505 days 5 hours ago
9 - I play about 15 hours a week
117 pounds, 5'7", on the Cross Country team. Thank you very much.
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