March 10th, 2005
Average MMORPG gamer spends 20-25 hours a week on the game
Approximately 85% of MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) gamers are male and 15% are female. About 15% of gamers meet the criteria for Internet addiction as provided by Kimberly Young, a leader researcher in Internet addiction. Using more strict criteria, a minimum of at least 10% of gamers met criteria for Internet addiction. Compared to national studies of Internet addiction, this numbers are somewhat elevated. However, given the sheer number of hours MMORPG gamers spend online (in comparison to the general population), even a 15% addiction rate is somewhat low. To illustrate the point, the college student spends 10 hours on the Internet per week. The average MMORPG gamer (addicted or not) spends 20-25 hours per week just playing MMORPGs, and an additional 10-15 hours per week in other Internet use. In other words, MMORPG players are spending 4x as much time online as non-gamers.
Alex is a software engineer in the San Francisco Bay Area. ITFacts is created and updated by a group of statistics-obsessed individuals.
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