New report from the NPD Group focuses on core gaming and core gamers

Despite the Economy and Less New Gaming Content in the Retail Market, Core Gamers Continue to Spend Money on Video Games

According to Core Gaming 2013, the latest report from global information company, The NPD Group, within the US population ages 9 and older, almost half play video games on what would be considered a core gaming device, but only 14 percent, or 37.5 million people, would be considered a core gamer*.

While the composition of core gamers leans towards a younger demographic, it is not wholly relegated to tweens, teens, and young adults; the mean age of core gamers is 30 years old. While those ages 9-17 are most likely to be a core gamer (26 percent), the likelihood only diminishes slightly among those ages 18-34 (21 percent) and does not drop precipitously until ages 45 and older.

Purchasing Among the Core

There are approximately 10 percent more core gamers saying that their spending has decreased versus a year ago than there are those stating that their purchases have increased, reflecting a decline that is in alignment with recent retail sales patterns. Eighty-eight percent of core gamers state they purchased new physical games, with physical used games and digital full games being frequent options as well at 78 percent and 70 percent, respectively.

"Digital purchasing among core gamers has plenty of room to grow," said Liam Callahan, industry analyst, The NPD Group. "While many core gamers indicate they are purchasing full games and digital add-on content frequently, there are those that stated they have never purchased digital content."

When looking at a more recent time period (Q4 2012) and the amount of money spent over those three months, the majority of core gamers spent the most on new physical games ($129), followed by digital full games and physical used games, both at less than half of what was spent on new physical titles.

Methodology

An online survey was fielded from January 4, 2013 to January 23, 2013 to members of NPD's online panel. The survey was completed by 6,322 individuals ages 9 and older. For children age 9 to 16, respondents were contacted using a parental surrogate, with the parent being asked to bring the child to the computer to answer the survey questions.