PopCap: Commuters Prefer to Play Games
Thanks to the prevalence of smart phones in society, more and more people have access to games and other media anytime, anywhere. The question now is: what do people prefer to do when they are on the road?
According to game developer PopCap, people prefer to play games when they are commuting. While this statement is something that many of us in the tech industry could already predict, it does have a bit more clout when the statement is backed by research data that verifies the claim.
Anyway, the survey encompassed a total of 1,500 adults who were asked regarding their mobile phone usage patterns and preferences. As it turns out, people on the move prefer to have a good game to play over having a good book to read. While it may seem like people prefer the transient and less ‘intellectually’ stimulating task of playing games, the matter is more of time management and convenience than it is a statement about the decreasing lack of interest in literary culture.
The big issue here is that people who were asked were commuters, and when commuting people do not necessarily have the frame of mind and the time to focus and appreciate a book. Reading a small news article would be okay, but digesting the events of a whole chapter is different. While there are people who are comfortable reading a book, this is a feat that is not common to most people. Had the study taken into account people who are travelling very long distances, the number of individual that would appreciate a good book would certainly be more.
At the same time, the statement can also be misleading in the way that it also generalizes games as being less than books as a medium. What people fail to realize that not all games are casual; in many ways, there are also games that are not suitable for quick rounds of play –though these titles can only be played in home consoles and desktop computers.
Tags: ebooks, games, phone-usage, PopCap, smartphones
