Nielsen Says Videogames Account for 5% of Entertainment Spending

One of the claims to legitimization the videogaming industry has made is that it produces more revenue than the movie industry. And now, consumer research firm Nielsen has announced that videogaming spending accounts for about 5% of all entertainment bound funds for average consumers.

When the “active buyer” category is taken into account, the percentage goes up to 9.3%. The Nielsen survey targeted more than 3,000 consumers in the United States. 24% of them are classified as videogame buyers, which means that they spend a sum of money every month on gaming content.

Videogame-related spending is sixth in the entertainment pecking order, behind activities like dining or going out, payment for TV packages, money spent on personal hobbies, live events, expenses related to going to the movies and cell phone-linked entertainment, which accounted for 5.3%.

Active buyers, who spent more overall on videogames, were less likely to pick up books and newspapers and were more interested in watching movies, at home or in cinemas, buying music, either at retail or online, and spend more money on sport-related activities, which thoroughly contradicts the stereotype of the stay at home, fat gamer that is not ready to spend their resources on anything other than taking out enemies in Modern Warfare 2.

Nielsen says that the amount of money paid overall on entertainment varied between different customers, so the percentages themselves do not directly translate into more dollars actually being spent on one activity versus another.

Overall, it seems that those interested in playing games, whether on the latest home gaming console or on an old PC, are keen on what can be described as virtual goods rather than on the old media. They also appear to be less interested in watching regular television programs and more in going out of the house to both watch movies and to engage in sports and wellness-related activities.