If you spend five or more hours each week playing shooters or strategy games on your PC, you’re considered a “heavy core” gamer according to a new report from The NPD Group.
In its “Understanding PC Gaming: 2014” study, the analytics firm breaks down PC gamers into three categories: heavy core, light core and casual. In order to qualify as a core gamer, respondents had to currently play action/adventure, fighting, flight, massively multiplayer, racing, real time strategy, role-playing, shooter or sport games on a PC or Mac.
Light core gamers still enjoy core games but play for less than five hours a week while casual gamers only play non-core titles.
Of those surveyed, 56 percent were considered casual gamers, 24 percent classified themselves as light core gamers while just 20 percent ranked as heavy core gamers. Even though heavy core gamers make up the smallest segment, they spend roughly twice as much money on physical or digital games compared to casual gamers.
The study also found that PC gamers are just as likely to be men as they are women – in this case, it was a 51 percent to 49 percent split, respectively. Gender differences become apparent by the type of gamer, however. Heavy and light core gamers are mostly men while casual PC players are overwhelmingly female.
PC gamers also tend to be older at an average age of 38 and have an average income of $69,000 annually.
Data for the study was collected from 6,225 individuals ages nine and older between June 2, 2014 and June 16, 2014.
