Game Age Research Institute Co., Ltd.
10.52 million people have played PC games
Potential users are a promising market with a scale similar to that of experienced players
Game Age Research Institute Co., Ltd. (President: Seiichi Mitsui) conducts various analyzes as the only “marketing research and consulting firm specializing in the game business” in Japan. Our company has built a research database that supports online research, and this time we have built a new “PC game research panel” with a scale of over 70,000 people.
In conjunction with this, we created “PC-GUESS (PC Game User Engagement Scale Segmentation)”, an index that measures the degree of engagement with PC games. In addition to being able to monitor the structure of the PC gamer market, this index is also effective in selecting targets when conducting surveys targeting PC gamers.
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■ 10.52 million people have played PC games
There are 10.52 million people who have played PC games. Although there are shades such as currently playing and having played to some extent, you can see that the scale is over 10 million, which is very large.
Looking at the overlap with gamers who play games on home consoles, there are 4.79 million people, and 45.5% of those who have played PC games have played games on home consoles, but more than 50% only play PC games. I am an experienced player. [Figure 1.]
Looking at the gender composition of PC game users, there are more than 1.5 million men in their 20s and 40s. About 70% are men, 69.5% are men and 30.5% are women. [Graph 1.]
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In addition, among the PC game platforms/services used within the past year, “Steam” has the largest number of users, followed by “DMM GAMES”, which has its own title lineup. [Graph 2.]
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■ 11.26 million potential PC game users
With this PC game research panel, you can check not only those who have played PC games, but also potential users.
There are 11.26 million gamers who want to play PC games in the future. We can see that there is a promising market on par with those who have experience playing PC games.
In this way, in addition to grasping the actual market conditions of PC game users, the panel dedicated to PC game research will conduct surveys to understand the concept acceptability of new titles, needs / dissatisfaction points, and preliminary surveys before implementing promotion measures. It is possible to efficiently conduct various surveys, such as verification of the effects after measures, covering both PC gamers and prospective PC gamers.
■PC-GUESS, an index of engagement with PC games
Unlike the consumer and mobile game markets, the PC game market is immature. Through the construction of the dedicated PC game research panel, we were able to understand the scale of potential users and those who have played games.
Therefore, we created our own index to measure the strength of engagement with PC games. This index is an index that combines PC game players and potential users.
In addition to factors such as “online service/platform
recognition/subscription”, “play frequency”, and “payment status” for those who have experience playing PC games on PC, “strength of connection with PC games” including potential users We created a segmentation that takes into account psychological elements such as “. [Image 5
“Innovators” who are most committed to the PC game market are 2.53 million (12%), and they are the driving force of the market. There are 2.53 million “adopters” who follow it, and play a role in connecting to “followers” consisting of 5 million people. These three segments constitute a market of 10 million people, and the largest segment, “Border”, with 11.72 million people, will be the key to future market expansion. [Graph 3.]
Expanding the number of users from the upper segment to the lower segment is necessary for the expansion of sell-through/downloads, and will ultimately determine whether the PC market itself can be expanded.
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■ Platforms/services with less usage tend to be used more by innovators [Graph 4] shows the PC game platforms/services used within the past year by segment of the PC-GUESS index.
Innovators are increasingly using any game platform/service. About 50% of users are innovators, about 30% are adopters, and about 20% are followers. You can see that it is widely used from gamers to light PC gamers. On the other hand, “Yahoo! Games”, which has the third highest number, has about 30% of the composition of innovators, adopters, and followers. I understand. “Steam”, “DMM GAMES” and “Yahoo! Games” are different PC gamers.
In addition, innovators’ share is conspicuous in platforms/services that are still in low use. There are few users of sales of DRM-free games such as “GOG.com”, “Humble Store”, “Green Man Gaming”, and “DIRECT GAMES” and users of KEY sales, so we will keep an eye on whether Japanese users will accept the benefits of this service. I would like to continue
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In this way, as a result of segmenting PC game users by behavioral characteristics/future needs/engagement, we found that there are differences in the impact on the market. PC-GUESS is an effective index for narrowing down the survey targets that match the survey content.
In order to acquire users in the still developing PC game market, it seems necessary to approach not only core users and fans with unique needs but also light layers and reserve PC gamers. am.
In many cases, it is necessary to conduct research in order to understand the needs, but it can be said that user sampling and planning design are extremely important in obtaining information on unknown user groups. Please make effective use of the “PC game research panel” and the “PC-GUESS” index.
Click here for consultation and inquiries about “PC game research panel” and “PC-GUESS”
https://www.gameage.jp/contact/contact.html
03-5464-9208
Person in charge: Kido/Mizumoto
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