Nielsen study: Most households spend five percent of entertainment budget on games
While we're sure Leslie Nielsen knows his fair share about gaming, we're talking about Nielsen Media Research -- it's a firm most known for documenting who watches what on television in the United States. Nielsen Games has conducted a study into the buying habits of Americans, postulating that video games account for about five percent of the total entertainment budget for the average household.
The information comes from a survey of over 3,000 U.S. consumers and uses the "share of wallet" idea for calculating monthly entertainment allowance. Basically, Nielsen took the percentage of money spent in a month on all possible entertainment options by a household and pulled this five percent figure from that -- however, households that were deemed to be "active buyers" of video games had a figure that was around double: nine percent. So, it's around five percent for those casual fans of gaming and about nine percent of monthly budget for active gaming households.
It's also important to understand exactly what Nielsen considers video game content: new and used games; downloadable content; rentals; and peripheral sales. And, unfortunately, there's really no way to quantify these figures into dollars and cents -- different households have different budgets, which could inflate or deflate the figures.
Nielsen promises a more comprehensive report on the subject this March with the inaugural Nielsen 360° Gaming Report: United States Market.
Via Game Politics]
