Some Video Game Industry Statistics That May Shock You

A recent video game survey report (Games Segmentation 2008) was released Monday morning by the business industry analyst firm, The NPD Group. This survey was given to video game fans of all kinds, 20,000 of them to be exact. Although the most intersting statistics come from the segment of gamers known as 'extreme gamers', or those who put in as much time as somebody would in a full time job (45 hours average). It is nice to know that although we do not get benefits or insurance we are still recongnized for our button pushing.

The results of their report showed that gamers from this demographic basically help carry the video game market or at least pad it very well. With an average of 24 titles bought every quarter by extreme gamers.

Although extreme gamers only make up only 3% of the estimated 174 million gamers that play on PC's, Macs, and consoles, they are a force to be recon with. To put it more clearly 5.22 million people are putting both serious time and money into the video game industry. If you where to break out your calculator you would find that at around $40 a game, this ends up working out to just over 5 billion dollars spent per quarter by this small fraction of the gaming market.

However what the report fails to show is that many of the 'extreme gamers' also make up a large percentage of those who mod their consoles and make copies of video games.

I am sure that many of you may be scratching your head thinking, ' game pirates are responsible for such a big chunk of video game sales?'. This is due to the fact that such a negative light has been cast on the game copying industry. With strict laws that controdict the "Fair Use Act", it is no wonder why the government and press portray game copiers as bad people.

But the fact still remains that many gamers are simply trying to protect their investments from losses due to damage and theft. With a new game costing as much as $60 these days, don't you think it is worth protecting from such threats, even if they may be your own children?