60% of Greater Southeast Asia gamers are strongly drawn to esports

SAN JOSE, Calif. – April 9, 2019 – Niko Partners, the leading experts on the digital games market in Asia, today announced the release of the first Greater Southeast Asia Gamer Segmentation study. The report provides a comprehensive look at who gamers in the Greater Southeast Asia region really are, and the gamer motivations driving the region’s major trends, such as esports. Greater Southeast Asia in this report includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and China Taiwan.

The report brings together Niko’s expertise built on 17 years of analysis in the Asia games market with study partner Quantic Foundry’s Gamer Motivation Model and data science methods, to produce an in-depth study that resulted in proof that esports is not a bubble in GSEA .

“Gamers in Greater Southeast Asia are primarily motivated by competition, completion, community and challenge, according to our findings in this report. These are also the most essential values of esports – which explains why GSEA is the fastest growing region for esports.” said Lisa Cosmas Hanson, managing partner of Niko Partners. “A surprising outcome of this study is how different the GSEA gamers are from western gamers. However, they have much in common with Chinese gamers, per a similar segmentation analysis we did in China.”

“Pairing gaming motivations with gaming and 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 seven distinct gamer segments:

  • Story Socializers
  • Casual Challengers
  • Skill Masters
  • Strategists
  • Arena Gamers
  • Fantasy Arena Gamers
  • Competitive Arena Gamers

Arena Gamers, Fantasy Arena Gamers, and Competitive Arena Gamers are the key segments for esports. The highest spending gamer segment, Competitive Arena Gamers are also the the most important segment for esports, and the largest segment in the survey.

The study shows behaviors and spending around gaming, esports, cybercafe, live streaming, and more, such as:.

  • Southeast Asian gamers prefer games that foster community, teamwork, and competition.
  • 60% of GSEA gamers are strongly drawn to esports.
  • 42% of GSEA gamers fall into the segment of competitive arena gamers, who love esports and who spend the most of all the segments ($15.8/month on PC games, and $10.1/month on mobile games).
  • The vast majority of gamers across the GSEA countries engage with esports.
  • Cybercafe usage is an accurate barometer of spending on games.

About Niko Partners

Niko Partners is the leading market research firm covering the Asia games market. Founded in 2002, the firm conducts syndicated and custom research studies on China and Southeast Asia including 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, IPO and market opportunity analysis, custom surveys in cities throughout China and the AsiaPacific 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.