Digital game playing is on the rise.
Though hard-core gamers are still more likely to play games each week, digital players are close behind, a new study has found.
According to NPD, hard-core gamers spend 18 hours per week playing video games. Digital gamers, on the other hand, are spending 16 hours per week playing games. Moreover, the research firm said that the hard-core segment bought an average of 5.4 games over the last three months, trailing digital gamers who bought 5.9 games over the same period.
NPD, which also provides monthly sales data for the gaming industry, recent acknowledged the importance of digital gaming. The company said in March that it plans to include digital games revenue in its monthly industry sales reports, rather than follow its former quarterly release schedule. NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz at the time that by not including digital content in sales numbers, NPD is leaving out 40 percent of all sales each month.
EA corporate communications executive Tiffany Steckler took it a step further earlier this year, saying that leaving digital content out of NPD reports is like "measuring music sales and ignoring something called iTunes."
That was made apparent last September when NPD announced that digital game downloads of PC games outstripped sales at retail. According to the research firm, during the first six months of 2011, 11.2 million digital PC games were downloaded, easily besting the 8.2 million titles bought in-store.
Even GameStop, which has historically relied upon physical game sales, is acknowledging the importance of digital content. In April, the company said that it sees its digital sales growing "at a 50 percent compound annual growth rate" over the next several years.
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