Study Finds Game Rentals Not Helping Game Sales

A new study by Frank N. Magid Associates into the habits of console gamers has found that game renters do not necessarily make good game buyers.

The study found that teenagers were particularly fond of renting games, accounting for nearly 30 percent of game renters despite making up only 12 percent of the population. But of more interest to game publishers is the finding that almost 50 percent of gamers said they purchased none of the games they had rented over the past year. Only 9 percent of the respondents claimed to have bought at least 11 percent of the games they rented over that period.

Most gamers who took part in the survey said they did not buy a game after renting it because it either wasn’t very good, or was too short. Detailed responses to the study, which looked at 257 people, are available at GameDaily.com.