3/4 of gamers plan to upgrade to next-gen in the next year

Social gaming site Raptr interviewed over 5,500 gamers and got some very interesting answers as to what they’ll be spending their money on in the next year, and what they’re willing to go without to play more.

Over 5k people is a pretty nice segment of the gaming public, and the answers on this latest poll from the website are interesting to say the least. Not only will the majority of those polled (who were both PC and console gamers by the way) be buying a next generation piece of hardware before mid-2015, but they’re also actually planning to spend more on games as well.

Topping this off is the fact that those asked said they’d be perfectly happy spending less time going to church, studying, and even sleeping just to get in a few more hours of gaming. For those of us who are in the daily workforce, I’m sure you could add ‘working’ to that list too… though then we’d have to spend less on games. Might not work out as well as you might think.

Anyway, here’s the full release about the survey, including the results, for your reading pleasure.

Raptr, the fastest-growing online service for PC gamers, today announced the results of a survey involving more than 5,000 of its members, which found that the majority of gamers who play on both PC and console expect to spend more time but slightly less money on their gaming activities in the coming year. In advance of E3, the huge video games industry expo taking place next week in Los Angeles, the survey also identified the most anticipated games coming out this year and the considerations that “multiplatform gamers” use to determine for which platform they’ll purchase those games.

Among the 5,594 qualified survey respondents who self-identified as playing on both PC and console, 75.8% said they play games on both PC and an older generation console, 5.7% play on PC and a current generation console (Xbox One and/or PlayStation 4), and 18.5% said they play on PC and both old and current generation consoles. (Additional survey results, beyond those contained in this document, can be found at http://caas.raptr.com/raptrs-multiplatform-gamer-survey/.)

“Gamers who play on both the PC and video game consoles are the core of the gaming market,” said Dennis Fong, co-founder and CEO of Raptr. “They not only represent the vanguard of the video games market, they also significantly influence the second- and third-tier gamers who make up the rest of the video games consumer base. Taking the pulse of the top of the gamer pyramid is something we’ll be doing on a regular basis going forward, just as we track PC game consumption by title and other usage data across our tens of millions of users.”

When asked which upcoming multiplatform game (among those titles that will be available at launch for PC, older consoles and current generation consoles) they’re most excited about, 40.5% of survey respondents cited Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs as the game they’re most eagerly anticipating*. The second-most anticipated title is Electronic Arts’ Dragon Age: Inquisition (19.0%), while Wolfenstein: The New Order (9.7%) from developer MachineGames is the third-most eagerly awaited game. (*Since the survey was conducted, Watch Dogs and Wolfenstein: The New Order have officially launched.)

In estimating the amount of money (in U.S. dollars) spent on games (and in-game purchases) per platform over the past year, and predicting the amount they’ll spend over the next twelve months, survey respondents indicated:
Estimated spending over the past twelve months:

• PC games: $350.52
• Current generation console games: $267.94
• Older generation console games: $131.67

Projected spending over the next twelve months:

• PC games: $317.28
• Current generation console games: $295.70
• Older generation console games: $76.10

“The Raptr user survey highlights the vibrancy of both the PC and console gaming markets, which collectively represent a nearly $50 billion game software business annually and an audience of more than 1.1 billion consumers globally,” noted David Cole, CEO and senior analyst at DFC Intelligence, the oldest dedicated video game research firm in the world. “We think with the new console launches the pipeline of AAA content for both console and PC is looking very strong and we expect core gamers to react positively.”

Regarding hardware purchase expectations, nearly three quarters (73.4%) of all respondents said they plan to upgrade their PC and/or console hardware in the next twelve months. Among all multiplatform gamers surveyed, 20.6% plan to purchase a new video game console in that time period, while 18.4% plan to buy a new PC. Additionally, 39% said they plan to upgrade the graphics card (GPU) in their current PC.

Three quarters (75.3%) of all survey respondents said they expect to spend more time playing games in the next twelve months, compared to the past twelve months. Among those who indicated they’ll be gaming more over the next twelve months, the five most popular answers to the question “pick one area/activity in which you’ll spend less time, while spending more time playing games” were:

• Watching TV/movies (34.7%)
• Internet browsing (17.4%)
• Sleeping (12.5%)
• Studying (6.4%)
• Attending church (5.5%)