Europeans play games a lot, says study

The Interactive Software Federation of Europe has announced the results of a Nielsen research project into the habits of European gamers, reports GamesIndustry.biz.

Covering 6000 people aged 16 to 49 across 15 European countries, the study discovered that us Euro types tend to devote a lot of time to our games - with 40 per cent of those in the survey playing for between 6 and 14 hours a week.

Gamers with kids tend to turn playing into a family activity, with 81 per cent of you playing games with your children, and perhaps unsurprisingly, gamer parents are pretty aware of what their kids are getting up to - more than half of them monitor which games their children are playing.

So, why have games become so popular? Helpfully, Nielsen also asked everyone why they play games. 45 per cent said games make them think, 57 per cent said they played to stimulate their imaginations, and 72 per cent said that they play for fun - we assume that the other 28 per cent are playing purely for the gamerscore bragging.

As for those who haven't jumped on the gamer bandwagon yet, it's not because they hate the pastime - about half of non-players in the survey said they just didn't have time to get into games.

How many hours a week do you play for, readers? We're especially interested in hearing from you if you're one of the 28 per cent who apparently don't get any fun out of it.