NPD Group: 22 percent of gamers are young and heavy

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.