Surveying over 5,500 of its online game playing members, Mountain View, Ca.-based Raptr released the results of a survey that reveals the majority of its gamers who play on both PCs and consoles anticipate spending “more time but slightly less money on their gaming activities in the coming year.”
In the run-up to the E3 video games industry expo to take place in Los Angeles next week, Raptr also polled its users regarding the most highly anticipated games due out this year, as well as “the considerations ‘multi-platform gamers’ use to determine for which platform they’ll purchase those games.”
Nearly 76 percent of survey respondents who play games on both PC and console said they use both a PC and an older generation console. Nearly 6 percent (5.7) play on both PC and a current generation console (Xbox One and/or PlayStation 4), while 18.5 percent said they play on PC and both old and new generation consoles.
“Gamers who play on both the PC and video game consoles are the core of the gaming market,” commented Raptr CEO and co-founder Dennis Fong. “They not only represent the vanguard of the video games market, they also significantly influence the second- and third-tier gamers who make up the rest of the video games consumer base.
“Taking the pulse of the top of the gamer pyramid is something we’ll be doing on a regular basis going forward, just as we track PC game consumption by title and other usage data across our tens of millions of users.”
Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs was cited by 40.5 percent of survey respondents as the upcoming game they’re most eagerly anticipating among those that will be available at launch for PC, older consoles and current generation consoles. At 19 percent the second-most eagerly anticipated was Electronic Arts’ Dragon Age: Inquisition. Wolfenstein: The New Order from MachineGames was most eagerly anticipated among 9.7 percent.
Video Game Spending
Estimating the amount of money they spent on games, including in-game purchases, per platform over the past year, respondents spent:
- $350.52 on PC games;
- $267.94 on current generation console games;
- $131.67 on older generation console games.
Estimating projected spending over the next 12 months, Raptr forecasts they’ll spend:
- $317.28 on PC games;
- $295.70 on current generation console games; and
- $76.10 on older generation console games.
Just over three-quarters (75.3 percent) of survey respondents said they expect to spend more time playing games in the next 12 months than they did in the previous 12. Among that 75.3 percent:
- 34.7 percent said they’d spend less time watching TV or movies and spend more time playing games;
- 17.4 percent said they’d spend less time Internet browsing;
- 12.5 percent said they’d spend less time sleeping;
- 6.4 percent said they’d spend less time studying; and
- 5.5 percent said they’d spend less time attending church.
Commenting on the survey and results, “The Raptr user survey highlights the vibrancy of both the PC and console gaming markets, which collectively represent a nearly $50 billion game software business annually and an audience of more than 1.1 billion consumers globally,” David Cole, CEO and senior analyst at DFC Intelligence, stated.
“We think with the new console launches the pipeline of AAA content for both console and PC is looking very strong and we expect core gamers to react positively.”
