14 DAY TRIAL // At the MI6 Conference (San Francisco) that deals with the business side of the videogame industry, Gerardo Guzman, director of Nielsen Games, presented the results of an analysis made by one of his media studies. The presentation revealed video gamers' shopping behavior, consumer insights and online, TV and print media consumption habits. It was a marketer's paradise.
Gamers seem to watch less TV than the general North American population. They also listen to more music than other people, making good use of MP3 portable players and of Internet streaming of music. It also appears that the normal gamer reads less than a normal non-gamer. Other interesting tidbits emerged. PC gamers are the ones who use games mostly as leisure activity, while mobile and handheld gamers tend to spend more time going out, for example. Console gamers, as a whole, tend to watch more films, maybe due to the inherent capabilities of their consoles.
Gamers do read less than the non-gaming population and tend to focus their reading habits around magazines such as Time, National Geographic and Maxim while largely ignoring daily newspapers and other monthly magazines. The survey didn't take into account the amount of reading that gamers might be doing using on-line resources rather than printed publications.
Gamers also tend to watch channels such as Fox, ESPN, Comedy Central and the Discovery Channel more than the average American citizen. PC gamers are more drawn towards the (excellent in my book) Sci-Fi Channel while console gamers gravitate more towards ESPN and other sports intensive channels.
Apparently, there's an ongoing love affair between the general game playing population, without any distinction for platform, age or type of game played, and television personality Jon Stewart, whose Daily Show is far more watched by gamers than any other demographic.
Finally, when they go shopping, gamers tend to leave their money at Target, Barnes & Noble and IKEA more than the average person.
Guzman promised more insights into gaming culture consumption and the shopping patterns of gamers as the company he heads finishes more studies and surveys. We're actually looking forward to more such data.