Survey Says: Gamers Aren't Doing That Much Gaming

Survey Says: Gamers Aren't Doing That Much Gaming

August 30, 2007
Take a break from your life and pick up the controller for a change!

According to a survey conducted by the Harris Group, console gamers on average are spending only a mere 1.9 hours a week playing video games.

Teen gamers spend about five hours a week gaming while those in their early twenties spend a bit under three.  Handheld gamers spend even less time at play, with a weekly average of less than 60 minutes.

Perhaps the best explanation for these low numbers is the time frame in which the data for this report was collected: Feb. 23 – March 6, 2007.  Q1 release lists are well known as a desolate wasteland of new game nothingness.  After the holiday rush, there simply isn’t much worthwhile released during the winter months.

Think about it.  What high profile releases were out when this survey was conducted?  Crackdown.  That’s about it unless you count Bullet Witch or SSX Blur.

Who thinks console gamers will average only a couple hours a week this fall when Halo 3, Mass Effect, and Super Mario Galaxy are out?

Via: IGN

-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen will be logging much more than five hours on Metroid Prime 3 this week
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Comments

Submitted by Terminator44 - August 30, 2007 at 6:58 am -0500
Oh god, not Bullet Witch. :(

Of course gaming is at a low during these peroids. There just aren't many games to play. Heck, with Bioshock and the COD4 beta out, gamers are probably busy enough now.
Submitted by D - August 30, 2007 at 7:22 am -0500
The fact that 13-18 year old gamers log in significantly more game time shouldn't surprise anyone. They are, after all, the demographic that doesn't have to work to keep a roof over their head...
Submitted by Solid Squall - August 30, 2007 at 7:29 am -0500
Man, it doesn't sound like you oldies have any fun :P
Submitted by Paul Cosgrove - August 30, 2007 at 7:38 am -0500
I haven't played any games AT ALL in the last few weeks, thanks to moving house (from Belfast, N.I to Dundee, Scotland). I had to leave all my consoles at home, and haven't managed to get them brought over yet.
Submitted by Awol - August 30, 2007 at 7:41 am -0500
Woohoo 12 a day study and then extrapolate that out over a year! I think someone should go back to school and retake statistics again. Also its just console games what about PC games added into that as well. I know I was playing way more than 3 hours a week in Feb. Of course at that point in time I was addicted to WoW and just about had to play every night.
Submitted by G-Dog - August 30, 2007 at 7:43 am -0500
Could it be that people have other things to do? Like work and raise children? This new info doesn't help support the fallacy that World of Warcraft is going to replace all other means of job hunting in the near future, or than pretending to be an elf is in some way a more fulfilling experience than reality.

And yes, between GP and Kotaku, I've seen people make both arguments.
Submitted by ~the1jeffy - August 30, 2007 at 7:45 am -0500
Metroid Prime 3 will consume my soul for the next few weeks. Sleep? Who needs it!

Also, why wouldn't you do a study like this over an entire year? That way you can factor out the idiotic release schedule we are subjected to.
Submitted by LightWarrior - August 30, 2007 at 7:45 am -0500
I just pulled a 6 hour marathon of Prime 3......and sometimes on my PC I pull 12 hours straight on some games....

How is it that we don't game enough? Maybe I game more then the usual person? When again sometimes I loose myself for a day or two reading stuff online....or watching youtube....

Welcome to my life. :D
Submitted by CyberSkull - August 30, 2007 at 7:48 am -0500
Oh yeah. I'm totally playing Metroid Prime 3 for only an hour at a time. (somebody stop me!!!!)
Submitted by Chuma - August 30, 2007 at 8:00 am -0500
The release of quality games makes sense in the perceived short amount of hours spent on consoles. Just looking at other media, cinemas made far more money on the release of popular films like Hot Fuzz, Die Hard 4 or *spit* Harry Potter.

Have to say that giving up WoW was very productive for me getting out the house and down the gym, so putting down the controller/mouse is sometimes a good thing :)
Submitted by Zerodash - August 30, 2007 at 8:08 am -0500
I have a huge game/console library and an awesome HDTV rig. Regardless, there just isn't enough time in the week for entertainment. Its a cold fact of being an adult.

I wish I had appreciated the leisure time I had when I was a child/teen more :(
Submitted by nightwng2000 - August 30, 2007 at 8:08 am -0500
Solid Squall,
Ya know, I LOVED the Life & Death games. Lemme show ya what I learned.

:: Slams Squall down on the gurney and straps him down. ::

Now, I think Life & Death 2 was the coolest of the two. So I think I'll show you the surgery on the brain that I learned.

Oh, and just before I put you under, you should know...
Life & Death 2 was full of bugs and was never fixed.

Goodnight sweetie.
:O

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Submitted by PeterWDawson - August 30, 2007 at 8:20 am -0500
That seems unusually high for teens during the Q1 period, but I guess that covers kids around 13 as well, so I suppose it sort of makes sense.
Submitted by Hannah - August 30, 2007 at 8:26 am -0500
I've been spending an ungodly amount of time on Second Life lately, but I find it's a good place to socialize, and I don't have much else to do. When I go back to school on September 4th, my gaming time will drop to a more manageable level. I suspect that most gamers' habits follow roughly the same pattern.
Submitted by Michael Brooks - August 30, 2007 at 8:54 am -0500
There's a very simple explanation for this: World of Warcraft. Think about it. This study was only for console games.
Submitted by lumi - August 30, 2007 at 9:05 am -0500
@Michael Brooks

Dead on for me. WoW has -devestated- my console gaming schedule =\
Submitted by E. Zachary Knight - August 30, 2007 at 9:07 am -0500
I need to play more games. I managed to get an hour of Onimusha Tactics for the GBA in last night, but that was about it for the week. I do have a five day weekend and I might get some more gaming in. We'll have to see.
Submitted by Rob - August 30, 2007 at 9:07 am -0500
Yeah, I can go along with this study. I use to be somewhat of a "hardcore" gamer, but nowadays my play time has been reduced to next to nada with occasional bursts of gaming when the mood hits. Lately I have been playing a fair amount due to Resident Evil 4 on the Wii and a little more before that with Oblivion on the XBox 360. Aside for those two games, I barely spend more than two hours a week playing video games.
Submitted by Zigs - August 30, 2007 at 9:36 am -0500
Console-only gamers are the budding hobbyists of the technology. I saw not one mention of the PC in that entire bit there, probably cause it would produce vastly different results.
Submitted by KitsuFox_FOX - August 30, 2007 at 9:58 am -0500
@ Zigs:

Move much? *hehe*

But really, if you put in the entirety of PC gamers, you wouldn't even have a chart. You'd have a fancy giant bar with a few tiny bars near it. I know a lot of people who play WoW compulsively, and to the point they don't bother putting an AFK or Busy up on an instant messenger (which gets annoying)
Submitted by King James - August 30, 2007 at 10:49 am -0500
I probably played about 10-15 hours through high school and college, but now it's closer to 5-8 hours a week. Recently I've been playing more because I picked up Gears of War and my fiancee and I have been playing about two hours a night getting through co-op mode. But even then, even without children I've got too much stuff that I have to do and want to do to play games like I did while I was in school. Still, I try to get my gaming time in, and I know that the fiancee and I will be sinking more gaming time than normal in the next few months between the hot games coming out and the frigid Wisconsin winter.
Submitted by The Central Scrutinizer - August 30, 2007 at 10:58 am -0500
We gamers are a finicky bunch. We'll go weeks and sometimes months without playing anything more than casually here and there and then that one game comes out, that one game that SUCKS you in and before you know it, a week has gone by and you smell like old sneakers and feel like an invalid who hasn't seen the sun or walked further than the fridge and the bathroom.
Submitted by Orange Soda - August 30, 2007 at 12:05 pm -0500
"-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen will be logging much more than five hours on Metroid Prime 3 this week"

I really, REALLY wish I could be saying the same. Damn my empty wallet!
Submitted by Avi - August 30, 2007 at 12:34 pm -0500
Dude, I have alot of fricking homework!

And no games come out in the summer either.

AND I can't find a fricking Wii! It's like they don't even exist, it's a elborate hoax by the media...and everyone
Submitted by Filorux - August 30, 2007 at 12:50 pm -0500
Being in what one would think is the minority of PC gamers - those who have kicked the WoW habit - there really hasn't been much out there for quite some time. Bioshock may be the exception but it is fairly new, and I haven't gotten it yet.

I remember the summer of '05, watching the annual video game report card on C-SPAN with Joe Lieberman and others. I can't remember exactly who made the comment, but someone remarked that we were heading into a period of relatively low new game releases, and that it would be the perfect time to try to get something accomplished. (read as legislation)

There is an 'old' joke that goes:
Mom: I can't believe you! All you do is play video games!
Child: Nuh-huh, sometimes I'm only thinking about video games.

It is harder for an adult to only play video games, much less have them be the only thing on their mind. I guess my point is thank you to GP and others who would keep video games relevant to me/us during those slower times so that it becomes just that much harder for "the man" to pull a fast one when they think we aren't looking.
Submitted by Zigs - August 30, 2007 at 1:50 pm -0500
Avoid the PC Bioshock like you would ball cancer. Not faulting the game itself... I'm loving every minute of it, but the discs are completely tainted with nasty, limited install DRM. My computer will likely not fully recover from Bioshlock without a full format.
Submitted by Keaton2008 - August 30, 2007 at 2:25 pm -0500
I believe it. I blame the lack of good games.
Submitted by MrMojoZ - August 30, 2007 at 2:29 pm -0500
Yeah that Bioshock DRM is horrible, it uses something called the "interweb" to activate your "Video Game". Oh the agony, if only we still had driver based protection schemes like Starforce to protect us from Bioshock.
Submitted by ZippyDSMlee - August 30, 2007 at 2:50 pm -0500
And the games show it...stupid short casual games >>

MrMojoZ
try again, unlike steam that makes you setup a account and have the game cleared for playing via it , Bioshock sues securoms online token system that can brick your game if you do not uninstall it correctly.

I might loath steam but at least they let you have a online copy of it to download and run even if it forces connections to the net and only bad install keys/servers can make the game not run/install, the securom setup is worse because it limits how many times you can install the game, of coarse its by sony who always had issues with user rights..
Submitted by GoodRobotUs - August 30, 2007 at 4:23 pm -0500
Actually, to be honest, I certainly don't do as much gaming as I used to. I've been playing BioShock a bit lately, damn fine game, but, contrary to popular mis-direction, most gamers know exactly how to put down the controller and do something else when it needs doing. I've been busy with other stuff, and therefore haven't had time to play games.
Submitted by Archgabe - August 30, 2007 at 6:40 pm -0500
I can tell you that I have been feeling the slowdown. There are very few games out now that are peaking my intrest (bioshock being pretty much it but I have yet to pick it up). But this study does show one thing:

Sit on your ass and play for god sakes! We are dropping the ball here worse than a Madden alpha test! We need to meet our quota or we will loose out gamer titles!
Submitted by InJM - August 30, 2007 at 7:32 pm -0500
I haven't been doing much gaming lately. I have been wasting time scripting and fooling around in Second Life but it's not really what I'd call gaming though.
Submitted by J-Guy - August 30, 2007 at 9:14 pm -0500
I have to rake in at least 2-4 hrs. a day. That makes it.......14-28 hrs. a week for me. Sheesh. I need a job.

Although I recently started my summer work (better late than never).
Submitted by shijirou - August 30, 2007 at 10:40 pm -0500
Handheld gamers spend less than 60 mintues a week? Huh? I beg to differ. I at least spend 2 hours of gaming on my PSP while on the bus on the way to work or going home.
Submitted by GoodRobotUs - August 30, 2007 at 11:14 pm -0500
There's actually been a couple of fine examples as to why I am losing some interest in games at the moment. They are Starforce, Rogue Universe, and Genesis Rising.

The reason I quote these two games is because they are two games that are graphically excellent, and based on great ideas, and yet both of them had a large number of issues with reliability and balance that need patching, they are only little things, AI glitches, difficulty and balance issues where the game seems to go from Easy to Impossible with very little in between etc.

I don't hold the developers responsible as much as I hold market pressures and the 'Pump it out and Patch it later' mentality that seems to exist in some distribution houses.

I think that's why I like BioShock, there ARE qualms, the menu system is a bit odd in places etc, but very minor ones, at least I feel like I got a complete game when I bought it, I'm not having to wait around for a patch to fix something that I find it very difficult to accept was missed in testing.
Submitted by Scolar Visari - August 31, 2007 at 1:01 am -0500
I have to agree about the lack of good games having an effect on gamers playtime. But come November I can see a rise in play time. I forgot that September is a big month for halo fans, I just hope Xbox Live survives the surge.
Submitted by BetaSword - August 31, 2007 at 1:37 am -0500
I know I haven't been playing games as often for a several reasons. One being that there haven't been a lot of games out lately that can manage to hold my attention long enough to beat them. Then there's the fact that I've been unemployed for the last few months (though that's just recently changed). And third, I seem to have gaming ADD. I'll start a game, and then see something new and shiny, and go to that one instead. I don't think I've actually beaten a game in a very long time... Oy.
Submitted by VenomandCarnage - August 31, 2007 at 1:44 am -0500
that used to be the same for me, than bioshock came out...nuff said.
Submitted by RedDragon437 - August 31, 2007 at 1:55 am -0500
The cost of PC hardware (especially DX10 compatible) is also probably one of the causes of the 'lack of interest' in the PC gaming industry. New GFX cards alone cost more or less the same price as an entire console nowadays, let alone the other components needed to juice up your PC gaming rig.
In the end most people interested in casual gaming will turn to the Wii or even the Xbox360/PS3 because it's hassle free and easier on the wallet. However, fans of PC gaming will get their money's worth when firing up some of the new games to be released later this year like Bioshock(already released), Crysis, Hellgate:London, etc.
I personally believe PC gaming, like a phoenix, will rise from the ashes, and once again become the greatest platform for gaming!
I'm REALLY DYING to play Bioshock but I'm from South Africa and the game will only be released here in about 2 weeks time. Yep, this WILL be the longest 2 weeks of my life!
LONG LIVE GAMING!!!
Submitted by GoodRobotUs - August 31, 2007 at 2:14 am -0500
Gaming tends to have a pulse, Consoles with new technology take the lead for a while, and then, between consoles, as the games move ahead of the current console tech, the PC market grows, then another generation of consoles comes out and it starts over.
Submitted by kevo - August 31, 2007 at 12:46 pm -0500
They are gaming, thier just playing world of warcraft. Do a better poll.
Submitted by Thefremen - September 4, 2007 at 9:59 am -0500
Now can we tell Obama/others who say we play incessantly?
Submitted by J - September 5, 2007 at 8:37 pm -0500
When Halo 3 and Super Smash Bros. Brawl come out. Statistics will shoot up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GamePolitics ShoutBox

Posted 12/01/08 at 06:01pm
Mech: If you have to keep your PC offline when you run Windows, you should just not touch computers.. :facepalm:
Posted 12/01/08 at 04:56pm
E. Zachary Knight: When securom realizes it is running in a virtual machine, then I will be done with PC gaming.
Posted 12/01/08 at 04:54pm
sqlrob: @zippy: versus DRM baloney trying to make my general purpose computer not general purpose. computer gaming=fail
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:56pm
ZippyDSMlee: sqlrob:console=nofixes,control options,no choices=fail
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:24pm
sqlrob: @DeepThorn: That's why I went to console years ago. Steam was the final straw. Windows = offline for my computers
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:23pm
ZippyDSMlee: DeepThorn: KAspersky is all that I sue now, the rest suck,norton has its points but is a system hog.
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:18pm
DeepThorn: yeah... I need to get rid of McFly or whatever it is called
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:17pm
ZippyDSMlee: DeepThorn: I turn of file scanign while I paly a game,still ahve networking protection and whatnot on.
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:16pm
ZippyDSMlee: DeepThorn:Take out 2nd hand thier goes thier bigest custmer in EB...
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:10pm
nelttab: @Deepthorn even then there are pirates out there that can get around that... the online thing anyway
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:08pm
DeepThorn: So much for me wanting a gaming PC offline with no security software...
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:04pm
E. Zachary Knight: But it may require an internet connection to install.
Posted 12/01/08 at 03:03pm
E. Zachary Knight: From the sound of it, it seems that once the disk is activated, it is activated forever.
Posted 12/01/08 at 02:57pm
DeepThorn: EZK - Is the main focus secretly second hand market again, or do they just hate their legit consumers that much?
Posted 12/01/08 at 02:56pm
NovaBlack: yeah i said earlier.. gtaIV available literally the day they announced officially it had securom lol. ITs so pointless its untru
Posted 12/01/08 at 02:54pm
DeepThorn: And justifies pirating it in more people's minds. (and the crackers know it will tick off the publishers more)
Posted 12/01/08 at 02:53pm
ZippyDSMlee: Zevorick: Correction Sicrom makes owning software inconvenant.....
Posted 12/01/08 at 02:50pm
Zevorick: Does it honestly surprise you pin? It's not like SecuRom has EVER stopped Piracy before. It just makes it slightly inconvenient
Posted 12/01/08 at 02:47pm
JDKJ: SeanB: There's been plenty new content and off-topic shouts. Ain't nobody ever get called out before for doing it. Relax.
Posted 12/01/08 at 02:47pm
nelttab: @JDJK aye, i could see that... and you know what... im glad i found this site a coupla months ago
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