Analysts Panel

A panel of analysts, one each from NPD, CEA and Gfk, were on hand to drown the attending developers with numbers and data sets, which they did with great success with many a pie chart and bar graph and pretty diagram. CEA’s analysis from chief economist Shawn DuBravac brought along with it the “recession proof” statement that’s been circulating throughout the industry the last few years as the financial world took its slow tumble to where we are today (as in, as of this writing), showing the industry’s continued growth in various sectors from mobile to console. They also did a bit of PC game death toting by noting how over 36% of homes have HD with a console hooked up and are bypassing the PC with said console or a set-top box to distribute content, including video games. One of the more interesting factoids they put forth was a study showing that 54% of people who played sports games were more driven to actually watch them on TV, which is a similar correlation to people watching sports on TV and then wanting to actually play them - in real life. Or perhaps they’ll just game more instead and create a feedback loop. A survey result showed that the number one feature people wanted in future games was friends list or buddy-linking integration, while being able to download a game came in dead last. It’s obviously so high school sweethearts can continue their relationships online through games, as another study shows is happening. Watch out Dad, now you have to stop her from seeing the guy virtually too.

NPD’s game business senior manager Michael Klotz of course brought along even more numbers, kicking off with the game industry’s 40% growth from 2006 to almost 19 billion dollars in 2007, with a +28% growth predicted for 2008. Of course this is taking into account all facets of the industry, not just software. In an echo from the CEA presentation, a lot more women are becoming involved with gaming, mainly thanks to the Nintendo Wii, which sports a 60% share of women players. Overall though the amount of women and men playing games has almost reached a balance point, and gaming in general has become ever more a part of America’s daily lifestyle with 59% of the US population playing games. We’re still outranked though by wholesome activities like simply going online (questionable wholesomeness), watching TV (less questionable I suppose) and spending family time (ah, there we go). Michael also pointed out what sites like Kotaku have been mentioning for a while now, in that NPD’s numbers only cover retail and not online subscriptions or digital downloads, although they are starting to pull those numbers down as well.

Jen Wu from the Gfk group put up numbers more catered to the mobile side of the market, showing how 21.4% of the US mobile population, or 48.4 million people, play games on their phone each month. Of these, about half (51%) play games only occasionally (which is a point brought up later by Justin Ficarrotta in his iPhone dev talk). The other half plays either almost every day (21%) or at least once a week (29%). The iPhone currently has a 12% lead over smart phones when it comes to gaming, but they are all still a small slice of the mobile gaming pie at only 21% while 50% of gamers use a DS and 28% use a PSP.

The Console vs. PC Debate