A recent study from the Nielsen Company on video games and the recession has shown that over the past several months, the number of hours gamers claim to be playing has reached an all time high. Nielsen Media Research claims that the uncertain economy has not hurt gameplay, with surveyed gamers playing one to two hours more every week compared to 2006.
"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," said Michael Flamberg, director of client consulting, Nielsen Games. "The social aspects of these games have engaged them. We don’t believe hardcore gamers are driving up the usage averages we’ve observed. Second, gamers may be looking to stretch their entertainment dollar further through playing games they own more. The importance of value for them is evident in the findings on used game purchase."
Additionally, gamers have increased their purchase of used games to record-breaking totals since the Video Game Tracking survey began asking about this in 2006.
Used game purchasing is at all-time highs in 2009, looking back since 2006. Claims about how many used games are being purchased in absolute terms and as a share of the total (used vs. new) have increased substantially (see graph). This is corroborated by GameStop’s record-breaking first quarter financial results, on the strength of used game sales. Best Buy recently announced it was getting into the used game market as well and Wal-Mart is testing this out.
