Ben-DutkaSurveys are a shifty bunch. They pop up all over the place on the Internet and they're always open to interpretation.
Take the latest survey from mobile gaming company MocoSpace, for example. The sampling isn't an issue; over 15,000 were polled.
And of that 15,000, 46% said they spend more time playing games on mobile devices, while only 26% said they spend more time with consoles (23% cited PCs). Now, before we play the logic game, we do find one particular statistic concerning: 47% of people say they're playing these games at home, where they don't need "mobile gaming" and where they might presumably have opportunities for vastly deeper experiences on consoles or PC.
Said MocoSpace CEO Justin Siegel:
"The fact that people are gaming on their mobile phones at home, often sitting a few feet away from their controller, shows that mobile is capable of grabbing and holding their interest. This data makes it clear that mobile is a viable alternative to console and PC gaming."
That's actually a little frightening. But put that aside for a moment and let's focus on the polled participants. Does anyone else notice or care that this poll was conducted at a mobile gaming website ? And that those 15,000 are obviously into mobile gaming? Why do I get the feeling that if I ran the exact same poll here at PSXE, or if any REAL gaming site like GameSpot ran the same poll, the results would be very different…?
This is the problem with such surveys. While there's no doubt that mobile interactive entertainment is on the rise, the hardcore gamers have absolutely no intention of shifting their focus to a 4-inch screen, nor do they have any intention of leaving Skyrim behind. There seems to be this belief that all gamers are the same; hence, "gamers" being polled at MocoSpace are in the exact same group.
But based on what we've seen in the past, that really isn't true. How do you view the situation?