United Gamer Online (UGO)

by Mike Smith

Think you're a big gamer? According to a new study from market research firm NPD Group, to be considered among the real hardcore you'll need to play an average of 48.5 hours a week -- nearly seven hours a day.

Even dedicated gaming blog Kotaku finds that "pretty extreme."

So-called "Extreme Gamers" average 29 years old, and -- perhaps surprisingly -- one-third of them are female. They're more likely to play on consoles than on the PC, and on average they've purchased 24 titles in the past three months -- a bill that could easily run over a thousand dollars. But dedicated though they may be, the Extreme Gamers are just a small minority: a mere 4% of the U.S.'s 174-million-strong gaming public.

And though seven hours a day seems like a lot, it's only a little more time than the average American spends watching TV.

The figures come from a study which polled some 20,000 members of an NPD Group consumer panel. It broke the gaming population of the US into six other segments, including avid PC gamers (who tend to be older, and buy more games online) and young heavy gamers, the largest segment, who prefer portable systems like the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.

Overall, time spent playing games rose from an average of 12.3 hours per week last year to 13 this year, the survey found. Both console and PC games posted increases, with the PC growing significantly faster than the consoles -- but portable gaming hours, on the other hand, dove 16%. The most popular platform overall, in terms of time spent, was the good ol' PC -- and if that surprises you, you probably haven't looked at Facebook lately