Hispanic Buying Power: Study Finds Group Purchases And Plays More Video Games Than General Market

The video game industry is booming and Hispanics play a huge part in its success. A new study from ThinkNow research has proven that Hispanics are avid gamers and surpass the general market in usage, purchasing of titles and technology adoption.

According to ThinkNow the study was conducted in April 2014. The sample size for Hispanics was 500 with an age range of 18-64 years old. The screening criteria for Hispanics was simple: self identify as Hispanic origin and for non-Hispanics, the screening criteria was: self identify as Non-Hispanic origin.

The study found that video game usage is nearly universal among Hispanic adults and that Nine-out-of-10 reported playing a video game on any device in the past 12 months. On average, Hispanics spend more time playing video games than non-Hispanics (12 hours per week vs. nine hours).

ThinkNow also reports that Hispanic gamers buy and rent video games more often than non-Hispanics. The most influential sources for buying a game title are online reviews and recommendations from friends. Even more, Hispanics are twice as likely to purchase and wear video game branded apparel and toys.

So what games are Hispanics playing? The study found that Hispanics mostly play video games on their mobile and handheld devices and computers. The title most common among Hispanic men is "Call of Duty," while Hispanic women gravitate more towards games like "Candy Crush" and "Super Mario Bros."

Meanwhile a study from Univision in 2010 found similar results which said Hispanic gamers were twice as likely as non-Hispanic gamers to answer that they planned to buy a video game at some point in the next 30 days. Furthermore, they were 15 percent less likely to say the price of a game was a primary reason in their purchasing decision.

The short time difference between Univision's study and ThinkNow's has only further proven that Hispanics drive video game sales. Maybe these new results will push the major game developers to make more titles with powerful and positive Hispanic characters.