The magazine "ComputerBild Spiele" has just published a study conducted by the statistics agency Statista on the gaming and purchasing habits of German gamers. Makes for interesting reading:

* Almost a third of Germans dive into virtual worlds on a regular basis. More games were sold in Germany in 2012 than in any year in history.
* Casual games are the German's game of choice, followed by strategy games, platformers, action games then RPGs.
* Germans spent an average of €74 (roughly $95) on gaming in 2012.
* They spent an average of 288 hours playing games.
* The top games of 2012 for the male demographic were FIFA, Call of Duty and Minecraft.
* The top games of 2012 for the female demographic were The Sims, Mario Kart and Super Mario [I assume Super Mario Galaxy and the New Super Mario Bros. games are meant by this, not the old ones].
* Gamers take in an additional 163 calories a day, which scientists attribute to compensating for the mental stress of playing games.
* 14% of non-gamers drove through a red light in 2010. Among racing game fans, this was 31%.
* The hobby has cost 5% of gamers a relationship.
* 63% of German gamers have played a game in their lives for which they were too young, based on the age rating (83% of men, 34% of women)
* The German gamer is 32 years of age on average.
* German gamers play games for an average of 6.25 hours a week.
* In 2012, 14 million people played online games. This is a drop from 2011, in which it was 15.5 million.
* 35% of German gamers have pirated a game in the past. 400,000 gamers do this on a regular basis.
* The industry sold 70.9 million games with €1.99 billion in revenue in 2011. The number of games rose to 73.3 million in 2012, but revenues declined to €1.85 billion.
* The top selling games of 2012 in order of sales were: FIFA 13 (PS3 version), Diablo 3 (PC), Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 (PS3 version), Assassins Creed 3 (PS3 version), New Super Mario Bros. 2 (3DS), Guild Wars 2 (PC), Just Dance 4 (Wii), FIFA 13 (360 version), World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandoria (PC), Farming Simulator 2013 (PC).

Edit: There's one I forgot: 41% of German gamers only play free games.

Interesting!

And... haha, Farming Simulator 2013...

Turns out German female gamers have a better taste in games than German male gamers.

Hmm so strategy games are the most popular (casual doesnt count!), yet no strategy games in any of the top games.

Here
And before you scream racist, I'm part German.

hold on

they spend and i quote

"* They spent an average of 288 hours playing games. " I assume this is a year

however

"* German gamers play games for an average of 6.25 hours a week. "

the math doesn't stack

Assuming its 288 hours a year then the average per week is closer to 5.5hours. And if it isnt 288 hours a year what the hell timescale are they using to measure the 288 hours

aye have to start practicing for oktoberfest at early age. +1

Workweek perhaps? And weekends are game-free time?

Now you know the secret. Germans only seems to be much more efficient because their days are longer.

As with almost any statistical analysis, there are a couple of things I have issues with: Well, duh. I hate phrases like this in such studies, as they try to make it seem like a sensational result. Of course more games were sold in 2012 than ever before. Guess what? More games will be sold in 2013 than were sold in 2012. This is not surprising, due to a number of factors.

1. The number of gamers is growing.
2. The number of games is growing.
3. The number of ways to buy games is growing.
4. The number of cheap games being released is growing. And phrases like this suck as well, as they try to imply a relationship of causality between two facts which does not in fact exist, or rather, it probably exists, but it goes in the opposite direction. The way they put it makes it sound like playing racing games makes you more likely to run red lights. In reality, the kind of people who runs red lights also tend to enjoy racing games.

Same thing with violent games. Being a serial killer makes it likely that you also enjoy violent games, not the other way around.

Cool, I just found out that I'm absolutely not the average German gamer:

I'm older, I spent more money and time on gaming, don't pirate games, didn't like casual games and didn't play FIFA, Call of Duty or Minecraft in 2012.

Oh, and gaming never costed me a relationship (and I'm sure it never will). But I have to admit that I drove through a red traffic light some months ago (but it was with my bike as I don't own a car).

Is the term "casual games" meant to include all adventure/puzzle games? I recall adventures have always been popular in Germany.

I'm more or less on the average in terms of age, and I do play Minecraft a fair bit, but that's where the similarities with the average German stop with me. For what it's worth, I play more racing games than anything else and I've never even been hit with a speeding ticket.


That's not necessarily a given though. Yes, the number of gamers is growing. Yes, the number of ways to buy games is growing, but revenues are down more or less across the board. But there's a steady decline in playership of online titles, and casual titles are seeing a decline as well. It's good and possible that 2013 will see a drop in the number of gamers.

Hidden object pictures seem to have a big following here. My girlfriend has a couple of friends who buys them (one has an entire bookshelf full of hidden object games). Other than that, I guess it means puzzle games and simple stuff like Bejeweled, Luxor and so on.

They're Germans. With their supperior efficiency, they can jam in an extra three/quarters of an hour playtime per week.