72 Percent of U.S. Plays Video Games

A recent study shows that video games made significant strides in popularity during 2007, jumping in reach from 64 percent to 72 percent of the American population.

Bad news for productivity, America: video gaming is on the rise. According to a recent study by the NPD Group, 72 percent of the U.S. population now plays video games, a figure that represents an all-time high.

NPD conducted the survey of 20,240 respondents, which included children as young as two years old, in early 2008. The results showed that 72 percent of Americans consider themselves gamers, a significant rise from the 64 percent reported in the same study only a year earlier. More than half of gamers responding were online gamers, representing 42 percent of the population.

Not surprisingly, younger Americans lead the pack in boosting online gaming numbers. Four out of 10 online gamers are 17 or younger, with a spike between ages 6 and 12. The slightly older 18-to-24-year-old group accounts for only 10 percent of online gamers, while kids 12 and under account for a whopping 25 percent.

Besides demographic data, NPD also found that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was the most popular online gaming platform, and that very few Americans own more than one next-gen console gaming system.