Latest Nielsen Report on Video Gamers Shows Surprising Statistics

Several interesting data points came out of Nielsen's most recent State of the Video Gamer report. First, heavy users of the most advanced consoles tend to play video games during traditional television primetime hours, and tend to watch less TV than their nonplaying counterparts. If there are shows video game players really want to watch, they simply record them via DVR and timeshift their viewing. But during TV's crucial 7 - 10 pm viewing time, in which advertisers are most interested in catching the attention of young audiences, that demographic increasingly turns to video games rather than TV.

Another interesting finding: card games are the most commonly played computer video games. The reason for this, Nielsen speculates, is that card games are included free in each copy of Microsoft Windows, the dominant operating system. Consequently, in the month of December alone about 17 million people fired up at least one round of Windows Solitaire, a game that has been included with computers since 1990.

Nielsen breaks down computer players by age and gender, revealing some interesting nuggets. Women in the 25 - 54 year old group made up the largest percentage of computer video game players. Men in the same age bracket came in second. Women age 55 and up came in third.

Mostly, all these groups played Windows Solitaire and other free titles included with the operating system. World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), is the most popular non-card game title, as measured by number of players. Nielsen figures about 1.2 million male players in the US along with 600,000 women played World of Warcraft in December, 2008.

While women showed the strongest numbers in "casual" game areas, young men still dominated in the more "hardcore" games like the latest Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 titles. Nielsen found the majority of console usage occurs from 3 - 10 pm. Of course, this is after school and before bedtime. The two newest and most advanced consoles mentioned above were played more than older models like the PlayStation 2, the original Xbox, and the Nintendo Wii. Hardcore console players trended male and young, between 12 and 17 years old.

Nielsen gathered the data through television viewer sampling of 17,000 American households. The National People Meter device the company uses to acquire this data indicates not just what is showing on the television, but what devices are hooked up to the TV and used at any given time. Thus, if a family watches cable, a DVD, or plays a console video game connected to the TV set, Nielsen can measures it and tell what is on the TV at any given moment.

Computer games were monitored through a software meter that identifies the programs used and the person using the computer at the time. Nielsen indicates it is monitoring over 184,000 computers and is following the usage of more than 1,700 different game titles.

Source: The state of the video gamer: PC game and video game console usage, fourth quarter 2008. Retrieved April 8, 2009 from: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/stateofvgamer_040609_fnl1.pdf