NPD Report: Decline in Total Number of Gamers, Mobile Shows Increase

By Karla Robinson
September 11, 2012

The NPD Group has released a new report showing that 2012 has seen a loss of 12 million gamers in the U.S., a five percent decline from 2011. Even so, mobile gamers increased from nine to 22 percentage points and now make up the largest gamer segment.
The study divided gamers into six categories: mobile, digital, core, family+kid, light PC, and avid PC. The family+kid gamers saw the largest decline at 17.4 million gamers.
Last year, core gamers made up the largest segment but they still spend the most of any segment.
“Given the long lifecycles of the current consoles and the increasing installed base of smartphones and tablets, it’s not surprising to see a slight decline in the core gamer segment,” said NPD analyst Anita Frazier. “It’s the revenue contribution of the core gamer segment that continues to outpace all other segments, and remains vital to the future of the industry.”
In the past three months, core gamers spent an average of $65 on physical games — notably higher than the overall average of $48.
In the same time period, game purchasers spent an average of $16 on digital games-PC/console/portable and almost 14 percent reported buying microtransactions/additional game content, up from 11 percent in 2011.

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