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The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

Gamer Behavior Categorized 86

Posted by Zonk from the and-easily-referenced dept.
Vodoo Extreme has the results from a recent study that looks into the spending and playing habits of gamers. From the article: "Gamers spend more than $700 a year: $341 on console titles, $233 on PC games and another $140 for accessories."
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Gamer Behavior Categorized More

Gamer Behavior Categorized

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  • And how much do they spend on their girlfriends? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    See above.

  • RTFA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @12:19AM (#12073435)
    IGN polled over 5,000 people from around the network gathering stats on their spending habits, time spent playing games a week and other related jazz. Here are some of the results

    IGN pulls a poll and Slashdot reports it as a 'study'.

    • Exactly what I was going to say. Not exactly a representative study, is it?

      Still, on the plus side we now have a clear definition of what it is to be a "gamer". I apparently need to do an average of 20 hours a week and spend the equivalent of US$700 a year. Timewise I'm down, massively, a factor of four I guess. Spendwise ... ummm ... just don't mention it to SWMBO, OK? (Damn you nVidia).

      Dave

    • Re:RTFA (Score:4, Funny)

      by rmarll ( 161697 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @12:55AM (#12073593) Journal
      This poll is at least as valid as a slashdot poll. Er study.

      # This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.

    • Re:RTFA (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Westacular ( 118145 )
      "Gamers spend ..." with 95% confidence, 19 times out of 20?

      I agree with the parent; trusting IGN to do statistics is like believing everything you read in Score:-1 posts.
    • "And Slashdot reports it as a 'study'"

      It'd be understandable if a reader contributed the news story, but unfortunately this is not the case. Oh well, I guess it's not the end of the wo

  • Only 14 a year? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by McKinney83 ( 687821 )
    $700 a year at ~$50 a game means that they're only getting 14 a year.

    Maybe the people surveyed took off $$ for trade-ins or only buy $30 and under games because that estimate seems rather low to me.

    • Re:Only 14 a year? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by xenocide2 ( 231786 )
      Or maybe thats honestly what people pay. It's only 14 a year, but that's more than one a month. Given the wild success the original halflife (and its mods) still enjoys, at least some empirical evidence exists in favor of the "averages gamers sit on their ass less than McKinney83" theory.

    • Re:Only 14 a year? (Score:3, Informative)

      by SunFan ( 845761 )

      14 RPGs/year = ~1400 hours of gameplay/year = ~58 days spent on gaming/year.

      If a gamer also works a total of about 83 days/year, sleeps another 121 day/year, and spends 20 days watching TV, then there are 365 - 58 - 83 - 121 - 20 = 83 days left for experiencing real life. Unfortunately, another 40 of those days are spent in the bathroom or eating, leaving only 43 days to do the laundry, yardwork, house cleaning, errands, and finances. Oops, I forgot to mention the family!

      • I don't think anyone except the top 1% of gamers come close to playing 14 RPG's a year. Are 14 RPG's even released in one year? Even if there are that many per year, they certainly aren't 100 hour marathons, maybe 2 of them will be that long. I think that most RPG's take less than 50 hours, or at most sixty.

        Your assumption of 1400 hours a year works out to a little less than 4 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Nobody sane is doing that, at least not every single day. Doing that for a we

        • You can play 14 RPGs a year if you're willing to play a lot of the more mediocre Japanese console offerings and also play everything the American studios are releasing, too. I can't say I think 100 hours per game is a fair estimate, though, people will only spend that kind of time on a particularly deep or interesting game. For most console RPGs, people will be tired of it within 30 to 60 hours, and few people play even excellent console RPGs beyond 60-70 hours.

      • 100 hours per game? That's pretty crazy. I've only bought two games in the last five years that took me 100 hours to finish, and before that, I don't think I ever took more than 60 hours (Final Fantasy VII was my longest investment before Morrowind came out, and that was about 60).

        I'd say a good average would be closer to 30. A lot of games only take around 20 hours to finish. 50 hours is long by most genre standards, and quite respectable for RPGs. 60 hours is a long RPG.

        The two games I've ever spent ove

    • Re:Only 14 a year? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by aztektum ( 170569 )
      This is just an IGN poll, not a indepth study, but if it's even close to being accurate, makes you wonder why so much money is spent on titles that will go unnoticed.

      If I were a publisher (a big one, EA, Activision...) instead of bitchin' about how much it costs to make 15 average games a year, I'd slice that release number by 2/3, make 5 or so kick ass games a year (for all platforms combined) and save the money I didn't spend on the other 10 crappers for stoking a hot fire on a cold night.

      • Re:Only 14 a year? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Lynxara ( 775657 )

        Nintendo, back in the NES days, used to restrict how many titles licensees could release a year basically to enforce this business model.

        • Re:Only 14 a year? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Weirdofreak ( 769987 )
          Or alternatively, they did it to uphold their monopoly.

          That's what the Wikipedia article suggests anyway, and I find it much more believable if the other things mentioned are true: orchestrating shortages, antitrust and only starting to put quality over quantity because they didn't have enough resources to manufacture lots of games.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NES
          http://en.wiki pedia.org/wiki/Nintendo

          • Re:Only 14 a year? (Score:3, Informative)

            by Lynxara ( 775657 )

            Go read Game Over by David Sheff. It's quite a bit better than the information provided in the current Wikipedia articles, which frankly reads like an "urban legend" version of events. The titles per year restriction was instated long before the chip shortage, as a reaction to how Atari managed to bust the market by flooding it with low-quality games in 1983 and 1984. Nintendo used the restriction as a selling point with early retailers who were skeptical of the NES.

            It's obvious that Nintendo eventually p

        • Except that didn't exactly keep the companies from publishing more than that... Think of Konami, who got around that by using alternate names (Ultra Software Corporation and Palcom Software).

          • Yeah. Nintendo knew the alternate companies really just Konami, and let them do it basically because of Konami's close relationship with Nintendo and a good history of Konami title sales on the NES.

            This sort of blatant favoritism is what drew Nintendo so much ire from other third-parties, particularly companies based in America. A lot of developers at the time felt like Nintendo showed distinct favoritism in dealings with other Japanese software houses, and frankly, they did.

    • is that the amount the article cites? haven't RTFA'd yet. that said, i think i've probably bought over 14 games this year... since january. god i'm a loser.
    • $700 a year at ~$50 a game means that they're only getting 14 a year.

      Only 14? I like playing FPS games. I don't think i can remember any time there were 14 good FPS games out in one year. Not that i'd have the time to play 14 games in a year anyway.

    • I disagree with your calculation. The availability of used games has increased greatly over the last several years, particularly because of online sales (eBay, Amazon) and retail stores offering trade-ins. Add in the various "greatest hits" lines available for each console, usually priced around $20, and cost-conciencous gamers are getting a lot more bang for their buck.

      Personally, I rarely spend more than $15 for a console game because I don't mind waiting a year from release for the price to drop. (ie:

  • MMO? (Score:5, Funny)

    by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation&gmail,com> on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @12:23AM (#12073460) Journal
    And probably about $300 worth of subscription costs to several MMO games. Man, they should find a way to combine those "get paid to surf" programs with MMOGs so that some gamers can at least afford rent after they pay their monthly game tax.
    • Not everyone likes MMO games.

      I probably spend that much a year or more, but most of my time is spent playing single player games, or in-the-same-room multiplayer console games.

      Network games just usually don't apeal to me unless I'm playing people I know.

  • Not too bad (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SunFan ( 845761 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @12:28AM (#12073491)
    If gamers use games as their main source of entertainment, $700 isn't so bad. It is easy to spend that much just on a cable TV subscription.

    Of course, it would be better to spend a little less and save that money, but, hey, Social Security will still be there...right?
    • "Of course, it would be better to spend a little less and save that money, but, hey, Social Security will still be there...right?"

      I dunno, I kind of like enjoying life while I'm young.
  • Damn, I _WISH_ I only spent $700. I just dropped 500 bucks on a psp, 3 games, 1gb memory stick.

    Not to mention all the console games I purchase for the xbox, and then the PC games.

    I think 700 would be extremely optimistic for me. This is depressing me; I spend too much of my small amount of money on gaming.
    • Damn, 1gb stick? Way to get suckered into Sony's proprietary trap. I mean, the PSP seems like a pretty good gaming platform, but it looks like a hella expensive music player and shitty movie dispenser.

      The good news is that you've still got 3/4ths a year left to blow more money with!

  • Buy games?? (Score:5, Funny)

    by fodi ( 452415 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @12:42AM (#12073544)
    You can BUY games?? where?
  • I would have to say 700$ a year is an extremely low estimate for anyone who reads slashdot. However, when taken under consideration that the majortiy of slashdot readers hold themselves to be geeks, you are only accounting for about half of the people who play video games. There are still many people who only lightly play video games. This part of gamers are skewing the result of yearly cost, atleast in the eyes of a good majority of hardcore gamers who happen to read slashdot.

  • Info from the survey: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Golgafrinchan ( 777313 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @01:11AM (#12073647)
    Gamers play an average of 20 hours a week; ten percent spend 40 plus hours a week.

    Based on this, I'd say it's pretty clear that teens and college students are overrepresented in the survey relative to the true gaming population. I don't know anyone in their mid-20's or older who can come close to averaging 20 hours a week. At the same time, nearly every male I know that's my age games on a reasonably frequent basis. So I'm guessing not many of them responded to this poll.

    This would've been more helpful if they'd have published an age breakdown of survey respondents. I think it'd be interesting to know, for example, how many hours per week 25+ year olds can play.

    • I'm 30+ and play anywhere from 10 to 30 hours a week. It varies a lot depending on what games are out that I want to be playing, as well as what books, manga, anime, etc. are also out.

      But when a really good new game comes out, it is not unusual for me to play 40+ hours in one week (Like playing 52+ hours of Tales of Symphonia in one week, 43+ hours on KOTOR2 in less than a week, or 30+ hours with Fable in one weekend).
    • Im 23 (slightly below your example), i work 40-50 hours a week and game around 15-25 during the week. Then again, i dont have cable, so its my primary entertainment medium. Though, after gran turismo 4 came out, its been 20-30 hours per week (with my bspec driver racing endurance races while i sleep). Not that im addicted or anything :)

  • yeah right (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sebadude ( 680162 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @01:17AM (#12073676) Homepage
    Excerpt from the article adjusted for the real world:

    Gamers spend more than $200 a year: $100 on blank media for console titles, $100 on blank media for PC games, and another $30 for labels, sharpies and cd sleeves.

    Heh.
  • I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who spends anything close to $140 for accessories. These types of numbers are just about worthless because they clump the console-centric with the PC gamer with the gizmo nut. These types of polls arn't accurate anyway. Do you remember how much you spent on games in the last 12 months? How many people could give an accurate number beside "$500 to $1000" and if they used how many games you purchased those numbers are terribly skewd by bargin/used games. This ty

    • I don't know about you, but I don't know anyone who spends anything close to $140 for accessories. These types of numbers are just about worthless because they clump the console-centric with the PC gamer with the gizmo nut.

      Actually, PC gamers can go significantly past that for accessories, particularly for flight simulators and air-combat games, without going to the 'gizmo nut' range. The Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar [thrustmaster.com] stick/throttle package runs about $300, to which can be added a number of different afterm

  • Oh noes! (Score:2, Funny)

    by dauthur ( 828910 )
    Gamers spend more than $700 a year: $341 on console titles, $233 on PC games and another $140 for accessories.

    Jeez I hope I don't go over my limit...
  • Does average mean "median" or "mean"? Did they give the standard deviation? (No, why would they?)

    If this is a real "study", then I'm CmdrTaco...
    • Does average mean "median" or "mean"? Did they give the standard deviation? (No, why would they?)

      With gamers, there is no 'standard' deviation; they're all different.

  • ...and they could cut that in half if they were patient. Wait a few months for a price drop. Hell, wait a year for something to hit the bargain bin. The games aren't gonna disappear if you don't buy them right away.
    • Indeed, if you're a year behind the latest releases you'll get good prices (I just recently bought UT2004 for cheap). Also required hardware will be a lot cheaper.

      You just can't share with your friends how awesome the graphics look in your latest purchase cause they'll tell you your game is crap compared to the current games.
  • I didn't spend any money on games last year. What shmuck is spending 1400$ to balance out the average???

    I know, I know, I'm skewing the stats - but isn't that what statistics are all about? :P

  • Rethink (Score:5, Funny)

    by eamonman ( 567383 ) <eamonman2&hotmail,com> on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @02:34AM (#12073929) Journal
    I think there's something interesting in this:

    There should be multi-dimensional spread;

    X=% of Discretionary spending spent on tech:
    Y=% of tech spending spent on games:

    100%--S------T------U------V
    75%---O------P---- --Q------R
    50%---K------L------M------N
    25%---G- -----H------I------J
    0%A---B------C------D------E
    0%----25%---50%---75%---100%+

    I'll just list the fun ones; feel free to fill in the others:
    A(0%,0%) - Has no worldly possesions and spends zero money on tech or games: Monk, Dedicated amish
    D(75%,0) - You have a giant entertainment system, nice car, possibly the latest GQ. You think games are for kids.
    E(100%,0) - If this is even possible.. you're a megalomanic scientist who seeks to take over the world by working in your lab to build a giant robot. Or you built a robo-hooker and maintinence costs you everything.
    K(50%, 25%) - Typical slashdot reader? (more into tech than games, but buys some games)
    N(100%,50%) - You live at home and you have all game systems. Your mid level stereo bothers your parents.
    O(25%, 75%) - You have every game system but you play it all on your late 90's 27" TV.
    S(25%, 100%+) - The EB Games clerks within 40 miles of you know you by name. People keep telling you to by an HD set but you aren't willing to put up the bucks.
    T(50%,100%) - Not only do you subscribe to most known MMORPGS, you try to play your new game on your console while waiting for the mobs. EB Games and GameStop employees are told to call you to get you to buy their games.
    V(100%, 100%) - You are either the largest spoiled brat on earth, buying only the newest game every day to play at your palatial mansion; You have a casino credit line at all game stores. All your non-game stuff is probably paid for (you have to have something to play all your games on. You wonder what it might be like to work a day in your life, but then you go back to playing again.

    Ok I think I've wasted enough time on this psycho-silly-nerdy comment.
  • I probably spend that much on books and DVDs. I only spent $120 on my last three games (Doom 3, Half-Life 2, Empire Earth Gold) in the last year. Beyond that, there wasn't anything great to be diving for in the bargin bin.

  • Bias (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 )
    By polling their own users, IGN are more likely to get hardcore gamer results rather than the average gamer, therefore it can't really be counted as a study

    A better study would maybe be a questionaire inside Gran Turismo 4 or another game that will be widely sold , so it would not be affected as much by gender, genre liking, age etc.

  • They got PC gamers wrong... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by illumina+us ( 615188 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @07:20AM (#12074855) Homepage
    PC Gamers spend a little more than that... $200 for 10,000 RPM Hard drive. $500 for latest video card. $300 for the newest RAM. $1000 for the latest CPU. $200 for a motherboard. Etc. Repeat every 18-24 months.

  • Rentals? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CosmicDreams ( 23020 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @10:10AM (#12075953) Journal
    This is an interesting question. How much do I spend on games a year. I bet the majority of my money is spent on renting games rather than buying them.

    Some games aren't worth keeping after you beat them. Some games look good but don't have enough variety to keep you interested. There are a ton of games out there I'd rather not own.

    Renting games is a good way to keep the costs down. Now if only Gamefly would build another distribution center near me, I'd be all set.
  • $700/yr?

    They obviously do not know me.

    ARRRGGHhh.

  • Half as much as smokers (Score:3, Funny)

    by dolphinling ( 720774 ) on Tuesday March 29, 2005 @12:34PM (#12077527) Homepage Journal

    Gamers spend more than $700 a year...

    So in other words, half as much as smokers. And we have a lot more fun with what we buy. Is this even newsworthy?

  • Someone should have asked about hardware, because I know I spend way more on hardware than I do on the games I play ON the hardware.

    How many $60 games can you play, anyhow? An mmo or two at $120-180 a year each is enough to suck ~infinite time out of someone, but you can easily drop $4500 or more on a high-end system. (Overclocked SLI rig with RAID SATA anyone?)

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