The sample comprised 6,000 respondents, based on 400 per territory (UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Benelux, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Czech Republic, Poland and Latvia).
All respondents were required to play video games on at least one of the following, PC, home-based or portable console, and to have personally purchased at least one legitimate video game in the last 6 months. This sample should be taken as representative of a broad cross section of active gamers.
Respondents were aged between 16 and 49, with 70% being male and 30% being female (please note, whilst representative of a widespread gaming audience, the data does not include the attitudes of gamers under the age of 16). The sample was broadly divided into five age groups: 16-19 year olds, 20-24 year olds, 25-29 year olds, 30-39 year olds and 40-49 year olds.
Minimum quotas were applied for usage of consoles, although allowing for cross-ownership and usage. Overall, 72% of the total sample play video games on consoles (X-Box, X-Box 360, GameCube, Wii, PS2, PS3), 61% play games on PCs, and 35% play on handheld platforms (GameBoy Advance, GameBoy Advance SP, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS Lite, PSP), although this varies by country.
In addition, respondents who did not qualify as active gamers i.e. non gamers were asked a series of questions before they were closed out of the survey to determine their attitudes towards video games, with these findings reported within the body of this report (see page 34).