Over half of the 211.2 million video gamers in the U.S. play games across multiple platforms, according to NPD

Sixty-seven percent of Americans totaling 211.2 million people ages 2 and older play video games on at least one type of device, with over half of these playing across multiple platform types, according to 2018 Gamer Segmentation Report, the most recent study from EEDAR, an NPD Group company.

According to the report, a majority of gamers (59 percent) play on both a mobile device and a PC or console, while 41 percent only play on one platform.

Mobile devices are by far the most popular platform for gaming, with 90 percent of gamers playing on their smartphones, tablets, or both. If a gamer solely plays using one type of platform, it will most likely be a mobile device, with 34 percent of gamers playing exclusively on mobile.

Personal computers are the second most popular gaming platform, with 52 percent of gamers playing on a laptop or desktop PC. Consoles, the third most popular gaming platform in the U.S., attract 43 percent of gamers, followed by handheld systems with 9 percent.

"Over the past several years, mobile gamers have been a key segment for the games industry to target with marketing spend because of the sheer size and diversity of the audience, as well as the amount of time invested in gaming on this platform," said Dr. Heather Nofziger, Head of Consumer Research at EEDAR. "While there continues to be opportunity for growth in mobile, the real potential for growth lies with getting the other groups increasingly involved in gaming across platforms that they may not have considered using for gaming in the past."

Gaming takes up about 16 percent of U.S. gamers' weekly leisure time, totaling an average of 12 hours per week. Gamers spend about the same amount of time on video games as they do consuming other forms of entertainment content each week. Some of top non-gaming activities - based on share of time for participants - include internet browsing (18 percent of time), listening to music (15 percent of time), and checking / posting to social media (13 percent of time).

Methodology

The analysis in this report is based on an online survey of 5,000 active U.S. gamers (ages 2+) conducted in June 2018. Participants in this survey were recruited from two representative pools : adults (respondents age 18+) were recruited for participation directly and completed the survey based on their own habits ; children / teens (age 2 - 17) were recruited via parent surrogates. Children over age 10 were instructed to complete the survey themselves, with parental help, if needed, and parents of younger children were asked to complete the survey on the child's behalf, with the child's help.

Respondents qualified as active gamers for the purpose of the study if they own or have access to at least one qualifying device and personally used at least one qualifying device to play a video game within the month of the survey.