The NPD Group has released Online Gaming 2007: The Virtual Landscape, which is a marketing report containing statistics pertinent to the growing field of online gaming. It is a statistical breakdown of who's playing what online when and on what devices. The information contained in the report is of vital importance to game, console and PC developers who will use the information for formulating future strategies for maximizing revenues.
For gamers it is interesting to see exactly what types of games are the most popular online and it might reveal some interesting future online gaming trends.
Their research indicates that 62% of all gamers play online games. You may have expected MMO's like World of Warcraft to be the number one genre of online game, but the fact is MMO's are not even second. The top dog of internet games is still casual card, puzzle, arcade, and word games, which represented 44% of the online games available across all platforms. Meanwhile, family oriented games made up 25% of the share while MMO games of all types held only 19%.
According to the NPD's research, 42% of all online gamers are female, which may account for the high popularity of casual games genres. In addition, the report also reveals that the majority of online gamers fall within the bracket of middle income ($35,000~$75,000) households.
In terms of the most popular gaming consoles, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has solitary control over the top spot, with the highest percentage of actual online use at 54%. However, owners of the Nintendo Wii may be the most internet savvy, as 76% of Wii owners surveyed are connected to the internet. The percentage of connectivity for the other two next-gen consoles hovers at around 70%.
While Nintendo Wii owners may have the highest percentage of internet connections, they aren't spending most of their time online with their Wii's. According to NPD's data, Xbox 360 users spend the most amount of time online, with an average of approximately 7.1 hours per week. The PS3 came in second at 6.1 hours a week, while PC/Mac users spent about 5.8. All other connected consoles amounted to less than four hours a week of online playing time.
If you think about it, none of this seems very surprising to me except maybe the amount of Wii owners with an internet connection. Otherwise, I would always expect casual games to dominate the online PC gaming space. People have a lot more opportunities for playing those types of games during the work week than they do to sit down and waste 4 or 5 hours playing WOW. Xbox Live is the best console online gaming platform available so it dominates the Console online space.
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