SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 9, 2017 – Niko Partners, the leading experts on the digital games market in Asia, today announced the release of their inaugural Chinese Gamer Segmentation study. The report provides a comprehensive look at who Chinese gamers really are.

The report brings together Niko’s expertise built on 16 years of analysis in the Asia games market with study partner Quantic Foundry’s Gamer Motivation Model and data science methods to produce a first-of-its-kind, in-depth study into the motivations and behaviors of Chinese gamers.

“Understanding how gaming preferences, motivations, and demographic variables group together enables targeting those segments with more precise marketing messages and acquisition channels,” said Lisa Hanson, general manager of Niko Partners. “Why these gamers play is as important as what they play and how much, and is critical to understanding them as gamers — and as consumers.”

“Pairing gaming motivations with digital consumption preferences provides a unique lens into what different kinds of gamers want and how to reach them,” said Nick Yee, co-founder of Quantic Foundry. “Fine-tuning player targeting is all the more important in the increasingly competitive gaming landscape.”

The report surfaced six distinct sets of gamers:

Hardcore mobile gamers

  • Hardcore mobile gamers play 25+ hours per week, primarily complex games on their smartphones.

Hardcore PC gamers

  • Hardcore PC gamers play 42+ hours per week, playing primarily challenging match-based games on high end PCs.

Casual gamers

  • Casual gamers average 12 hours per week, across platforms but with the majority of their time spent on mobile, playing casual games.

Casual demolitionists

  • Casual demolitionists play an average of 16.5 hours a week. They love competition and excitement, but prefer less complex gameplay.

Super consumers

  • Super consumers have the highest income of all segments, and are voracious digital consumers and early adopters. They rack up more than 40 hours of gaming, across all platforms

Core gamers

  • The largest segment, core gamers are true gaming enthusiasts. They average 18 hours of play per week, and also like to talk about and interact with gaming-related content.

The study also shows the gaming, movie, live streaming, online shopping and other behaviors of each of the segments.

  • Almost all gamers in China spend significant time playing games on their smartphones, even hardcore PC gamers
  • The most popular games for all gamers in China, regardless of segment are League of Legends on PC and Honor of Kings on mobile.
  • The majority of all segments attend movies in the theater either opening day or week of release
  • Attending movies at the movie theater is vastly more popular than watching movies at home.
  • The majority of gamers are video and live streaming, Core gamers are more likely to consume both game live streams and video streaming, whereas casual gamers are more likely to consume film, comedy and talk show streams.

Nearly every gamer uses WeChat and most use QQ.

For this report, Niko Partners conducted a survey of gamers across China that included questions on gaming, movies, live streaming, social networking, media, shopping, and more. Quantic Foundry applied quantitative techniques, such as cluster analysis, against their baseline gamer motivation model to identify distinct player segments within the audience.

About Niko Partners

Niko Partners is the leader in Asian Games Market Intelligence™, specializing in the Chinese and Southeast Asian game markets. Founded in 2002 and in its 15th year of detailed analysis on the Chinese market, the firm conducts syndicated and custom research studies on Chinese gamers, Southeast Asian gamers, online games, mobile games, consoles, Smart TV gaming, regulatory issues, piracy, development, online operators, distribution, and retail. Niko Partners also offers consulting services including focus groups, partnership selection, market opportunity analysis, custom surveys in cities throughout China and the Asia-Pacific region and customized data analysis. The goal of the research and strategic advisory services is to help understand the market, strategically enter or expand market share, and continue to profitably grow within China and Southeast Asia’s impressive markets. The company is based in Silicon Valley and Shanghai, and its clients include worldwide leaders in game software, hardware, and services, as well as hedge funds, media companies, trade associations, and management consulting firms, www.nikopartners.com all of whom have a vested interest in a thorough understanding of the games industry in Southeast Asia and China.

About Quantic Foundry

Quantic Foundry is a market research company focused on gamer motivation, with a proprietary Gamer Motivation Model developed using data from over 350,000 gamers. The co-founders, Nick Yee and Nicolas Ducheneaut, both have backgrounds in social science and data science. For over 15 years, they have been studying gamer motivation and in-game behaviors using established and innovative methods on large gamer data sets. Quantic Foundry specializes in profiling the motivations of game audiences, visualizing competitors in a game’s target market space, and identifying distinct player segments within a game audience. Quantic Foundry is based in Silicon Valley, and its clients include leading developers of AAA, mobile, and tabletop games.