Environmental Analysis
Demographic trends
Gaming has become an important part of growing up for people who were born in the last 25 years. Approximately 3.9 - 4.7% of total world population (250 to 300 million people) is ¡§very active¡¨ or a ¡§frequent¡¨ player of video games or at least owns the necessary equipment. This target group spends five or more hours a week playing video games. The United States is the largest video game market in the world with about 50% of the US population (145 Million people) spending 6.5 hours a week on computers and video games.
The majority of video game players are preteens, teenagers, and young adults (between the age of 20 and 40). A full 70% of college students play video games at least occasionally in a year and 100% had played at some point in their life. The average age of game players in the US in 2003 is 29 years old and hard-core gamers purchase 10-15 new games annually. Indeed, the average age of game players is rising because gamers continue to play into their adult years, of those over age 50, 17% play video games up from 13% in 2000. The number of females who played console games dramatically rose also to about 40%. It is interesting to note that gamers over the age of 35 like to play games on PCs while those younger than 35 preferred console systems.
Socio-cultural
Many people think spending many hours in front of either PCs or video game consoles is not a good hobby for kids. There are many issues such as health, personality, motivation and especially violence and aggression . Some people believe violence in video games and in other media promotes violent behavior among participants. It can contribute to players becoming overweight b ...