14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the younger the consumer, the smarter he is. Or at least this is how the results of a new NPD Group study can be interpreted. The research basically shows that children who use digital devices are more and more interested in downloadable content, which they can get quickly and without going into a store, by using the Internet or specific distribution channels that have been set up by companies like Nintendo.
The study of the NPD Group targeted a few thousands of women who have children aged from 2 to 14 and sought to see how much media, which means everything from videogames to music, was bought and then played across four devices: PCs, digital media players, gaming consoles and mobile phones. The age group between 9 and 14 has increased its gaming time. It seems that 85% of those surveyed use their devices to play games, while 60% use the same devices to listen to music and just 33% use them to watch videos.
Anita Frazier, who is an analyst for the NPD Group, commented on the results of the study, saying that “Although the most dramatic increase in usage of these devices happens at about age 9, playing games appears to be an activity that first engages young kids with the digital world. Our study finds that 82 percent of kids ages 2-to-5 play games on one or more of the devices surveyed.”
With piracy being an ever present concern for the gaming industry (less so for Sony, as the PlayStation 3 has not been cracked yet), a bigger reliance on digital download, which can be done through secure services like Steam from Valve or Impulse from Stardock, can be good news for publishers like Electronic Arts or Activision Blizzard. The only bad news is that there will probably be some time until the kids who are now 14 get to be the main consumers for the videogames industry.