First of all, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season, spending it with friends and family.

  Now on to the survey results.  I received 193 responses in all, to which I’m very thankful to the community for.  You can download 2 files that contain all of the data:   Survey results Survey comments . 

  I think the number of responses received make this a viable survey to draw conclusions from.  However, note that this survey was primarily promoted on the Privateer Press forum so the data respresents a group of gamers that visits those boards reguarly and was motivated enough to respond to the survey request.

1. On average, how much do you spend over the course of 1 year on all your gaming products and related gaming supplies?  Exclude any money received as a gift.  Exclude money spent on tournaments and gaming conventions.

About 20% of the group spends $251-500 a year while another 20% spends about $501-750 a year.  This was a little less than I expected, but not much.  A major drop off in spending takes place just after the $1,500 mark.

2. Typically, how often do you spend this money on gaming products or related supplies?

A full 50% of the group makes purchases every month.  I expected this given most gaming companies release schedules, include Privateer Press.  Another ~40% of the group buys things either weekly or bimonthly, demonstrating that most gamers like to buy things are a pretty regular basis.

3. On average, how much money do you get as a gift that you devote to gaming products or related supplies in 1 year? 

This is one of the results that surprised me.  Fully 60% of the group got less than $100 in gaming gifts.  I expected more but then thinking about it, shopping for gaming items is a daunting task for non-gamers.  It’d be impossible really without a wish list spelling things out for the gifters.  On the other hand, I thought that game/internet store gift certificates might pick up this slack, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. 

4. On average, how many tournaments do you attend each year? Exclude those tournaments that take place at a gaming convention.

This was a sad result really, but I suspected as much.  A little over a third of the group only attends one or no tournaments per year.  This could be due to lack of interest or not having a location that runs regular events.  I know from other research that gamers will not generally travel far to go to a tournament.  By “far” I’d hazard a guess of no more than 1 hour’s drive.

Another third attends 2-3 events a year and about 18% go to 4-6 a year.   I’d label this group the core of the gaming audience (47%).   Altogether 17% of the remainder of the group attend 7-12+ tournaments a year.  I’d label that group the hardcore tournament goers. 

5. On average, how much money do you spend going to tournaments in 1 year (entrance fees, travel costs, food costs, etc.)?

Overwhelmingly (55%), most gamers only spends a modest $0-50 per year on tournament costs.  Considering my suggestion that gamers don’t travel far for tournaments, this isn’t a surprising result. Especially when you consider our new data that says that most gamers go to only a handful of events.

6. On average, how many gaming conventions do you attend each year?

Just about 44% of the group goes to no conventions at all per year.  This isn’t too surprising since cons are a major investment in time and money if they aren’t within driving distance.  About a third of the group does go to one con a year though.  The major drop off seems to occur after 2 cons per year.

7. On average, how much money do you spend going to gaming conventions in 1 year (entrance fees, travel costs, food costs, etc.)?

Almost 54% of the group only spends $0-100 on these conventions.  This low number supports my suggestion that most convention goers are local attendees who can drive there.  This low amount of money accounts for entrance fee, some gas to travel there and some food for the day.  Note that this question specifically does not ask for how much they spend on products while they are there.

Almost 25% of the group spends anywhere between $101-500, which is still pretty low if you consider hotel costs and a flight ticket.  So these might be gamers who are long-haul drivers but need a hotel to stay overnight.   About 9% spend anywhere from $501-1,000 and might be considered the flyers.

8.  Open commentary

The commentary provided helped inform my analysis but there weren’t any comments that were particularly notable.

 Conclusion:   It seems that while gamers like to spend regularly, they only do so with a modest spending budget per year, which is not supplemented by gifts.  They also do not attend very many tournaments or conventions each year and when they do, they try not to spend too much doing so.

Again, thank you to everyone who participated in the survey.  It was very interesting to see the results.  I welcome other people’s opinion of what the data is saying.

–Norbert