Gamers Play More During the Recession

On the one hand, the recession hitting the world at the moment is certainly bad for the videogaming industry, as revenue is going down from both hardware and software sales, with players tightening their wallets and spending less. On the other hand, it seems that the recession is good for gaming in general, as a new report from research firm Nielsen is saying that the numbers of hours spent gaming has shot up.

During the month of January 2009, players logged in an average of 19 hours of gaming during one week compared with the 16.5 hours recorded during the same period in 2008.

This means that people tend to use games more as a means to unwind after work and even turn to them to provide the social space where they can meet their friends. Michael Flamberg, who is the director of client consulting for Nielsen Games, stated that “Primarily, we believe mainstream gamers are playing more of the broadly appealing games (i.e Wii Fit, Guitar Hero and Rock Band) pushing their hours of gameplay up.”

Nielsen is also saying that a direct result of the recession is a rise in the sales of used games. In May 2009, the ratio of used titles bought by the average gamer was 0.36, which is the highest value since Nielsen began tracking them back in 2006. One sign of the importance of used game sales is that the profits of GameStop have shot up by about 32%.

It also seems that services, which rent players the videogames they play are having a good period with more subscriptions being registered with companies like GameFly or Blockbuster ahead of those seen in other years. New game sales are the clear victim in this equation, with 2009 not seeing the same impact from big releases registered in 2008 when Grand Theft Auto IV and Mario Kart Wii came out.