40 Percent of UK population now play games says new ISFE report
Further, nearly half of the people that play games are women, and online now matches packaged as the most common form of gaming in the UK
21 November 2012 - London, United Kingdom – UK games and interactive entertainment trade body, Ukie today welcomed a new ISFE report that examines UK consumer attitudes to video games.
Headlines from the report include:
- 40% of the UK’s online population aged 16 to 64 years old have played games in the last year
- 46% of these people are female
- Online now matches packaged as the preferred form of gaming for the online population of UK
- 43% of parents play games with their children
- The majority of children aged 6-15 are buying or receiving games
- And people who play games seem to be more sociable and sporty than others; being more likely to be interested in ‘going out to bars and clubs’ (50% vs. 38% non-gamers) and ‘taking part in sport’ (42% vs. 34% non-gamers)
The Videogames in Europe Report, published today, is a multi-country survey run by Ipsos MediaCT, in partnership with the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE).
It is designed to provide a better understanding of the societal context in which games are being played today in 16 European countries. The UK report published today will be part of a wider EU report due to be published next week. The study used a combination of online self-completion survey and offline interviews and targeted a representative sample of respondents aged between 16 and 64.
The report asked 1307 people from the UK’s online population about their games habits and their attitudes to games and interactive entertainment.
You can download a full version of Videogames in Europe: Great Britain here.
Commenting on the report Ukie CEO, Dr Jo Twist said: “We know that more people than ever are playing games and this report backs that up, with 40% of the online population of the UK now regularly playing games, and nearly half of them are female.
“The survey also really shows the ever growing acceptance of games as an everyday pastime. This is also being seen politically; over the last two weeks we’ve held meetings with 11 senior politicians from the major political parties and all of them had a very positive view of what games could offer society and the economy, giving us more scope to build on our recent political wins of tax breaks and getting children coding.”
Ukie is also the sole UK vendor for the regular consumer habit GameTrack Report, giving powerful and accurate evidence of what games people are spending their money on, for how long and on which platforms. This panel based research project was launched this year and gives a UK and Europe wide view of games and consumer behaviour.
