Cross-cultural patterns in mobile playtime: an analysis of 118 billion hours of human data

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of gaming as a human activity, the literature on playtime is uninformed by large-scale, high-quality data. This has led to an evidence-base in which the existence of specific cultural gaming cultures (e.g. exceptional levels of gaming in East Asian nations) are not well-supported by evidence. Here we address this evidence gap by conducting the world’s first large-scale investigation of cross-cultural differences in mobile gaming via telemetry analysis. Our data cover 118 billion hours of playtime occurring in 214 countries and regions between October 2020 and October 2021. A cluster analysis establishes a data-driven set of cross-cultural groupings that describe differences in how the world plays mobile games. Despite contemporary arguments regarding Asian exceptionalism in terms of playtime, analysis shows that many East Asian countries (e.g., China) were not highly differentiated from most high-GDP Northern European nations across several measures of play. Instead, a range of previously unstudied and highly differentiated cross-cultural clusters emerged from the data and are presented here, showcasing the diversity of global gaming.

An app-based training for adolescents with problematic digital-media use and their parents (Res@t digital): protocol for a cluster-randomized clinical trial

“…Adolescents and parents indicate their agreement with nine statements on a five-point Likert scale (strongly disagree [0]-strongly agree [4]) under consideration of the past 12 months with higher total scale scores resembling more problems. The 10th item reflects the frequency of problems, conflicts, or difficulties due to the digital medium and is answered by choosing one out of four response options (not at all [0]nearly daily [3]). The questionnaires can be used for a categorical assessment of the DMUD.…”

“…In 2022, revenue from digital games amounted to 184 billion U.S. dollars with mobile games accounting for 50% of the global gaming market (2). During the last decades, improved design mechanisms and broad availability led to increased usage frequency and duration worldwide over all age groups (3). During the COVID-19 pandemic, this development was fostered by contact restrictions, quarantines, and the closure of schools and leisure facilities, especially for children and adolescents (4)(5)(6).…”

Four grand challenges for video game effects scholars: How digital trace data can improve the way we study games

“…We believe these warrant greater attention in our field. Cooperation with industry has led to some of the most exciting and informative studies in the field (e.g., Vuorre et al, 2022;Zendle et al, 2023). However, these outcomes need to be balanced against the integrity challenges posed by privileged collaborations (i.e., collaborations between particular industry bodies and particular research groups with particular research aims, to date the status quo for industry collaboration.…”

“…We discussed at length in an earlier subsection some of the negative consequences associated with privileged industry collaborations, particularly with regard to the dilemma of interest, and do not belabour this point here. Nonetheless, we believe that it is worthwhile to also reflect upon the strengths of industry collaborations, with reference to research recently conducted by members of the research team in collaboration with Unity Technologies (Zendle et al, 2023).…”

Debate: Games‐based collaboration as a driver for massive‐scale mental health research

“…And yet there is a lack of hard numbers and at-scale evidence about the size of the games industry, how many games that exist (millions), how and why people play all these games, and what kind of impactpositive and negativegameplaying has on people and society. Games research has historically not happened at this scale, although some very recent work of ours is trying to rectify this (Zendle, Flick, Halgarth, Ballou, Demediuk, et al, 2022;Zendle, Flick, Halgarth, Ballou, Cutting, et al, 2022).…”