Chris Bateman’s got some interesting results from a survey they’ve done for a new player model, with 1040 responses.
Of those who classify themselves as casual gamers 49% play every day! Sounds like a statistic Jesper Juul would be interested in.
Also only 1.25% enjoy games without stories. I think that’s interesting.
We’ve received 1,040 responses to the survey, of which 55% (576) are from North America, 30% (317) are from Western Europe or the UK, 5% (52) are from Australasia, and a few responses from everywhere else in the world besides.
The majority of respondents play games every day (66%), with many of the others playing every week (26%). Interestingly, of those that self-identified as “Hardcore”, 81% play every day, and of those that self-identified as “Casual”, 49% play every day. It seems that even people who see themselves as a Casual player are still playing amazingly often.
The most popular approach is to play alone (40%), with just a few playing single player games with pad passing or some similar group play (7%). The remaining players all prefer some kind of multiplayer format, whether in the same room (17%) or over the internet (19%, of which 5% is team or clan play), with the remaining 16% preferring virtual worlds and MMORPGs.
On the subject of game stories, there is overwhelming consensus, with 93% saying either that stories are very important to their enjoyment of videogames (36%) or that stories help them enjoy videogames (57%). A mere 5% say stories are not important, and just 1.25% say they prefer videogames without stories. Clearly, story occupies a vital space in the modern world of videogames – gamers love stories!
Remember What The Dormouse Said 
This doesn’t surprise me that much. In WoW, for example, you are considered ‘casual’ if you don’t play at least 4-5 hours a day, are in a serious raiding guild, or a serious arena team. Anything less than that is ‘casual’.
Well there you go. I guess I just think of casual gamers as those who may have a consoll and just play a little bit every now and then. But I guess it says more about how much games are in our daily lives, than anything else. Hmm
I’m not surprised, but it comes as a comforting conformation to my claim that games are, -to a considerable extent-, storytelling. And even though it is possible to construct “games” that does not tell a story (and I do not agree that tetris or checkers can be considered to tell a story, even though it’s not hard to find those who claims so), it is exactly the story that is so important. Not solely, but considerably. With that in mind I find it puzzling that most games are not completed (I think I read that somewhere), so most game-stories are thus not consumed fully. The ending is not revealed. I wonder if this is something game designers think of when they (or the script writher) put story into the mix..
I think that’s definitely something that game designers think of. I think the fact that most games are never actually finished, so the story never completely told is one of the reasons why so many are talking about gaming episodes (that and money, of course). But you bring up a relevant point. If the stories in games are so important to us, why don’t we finish them? I’m definitely guilty of that. Does the narrative become too dreary? Do we get bored with it? Are there too few suprises and climaxes for us to want to finish the story? Too little emotion? huh…