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.

Details

Title
Cross-cultural patterns in mobile playtime: an analysis of 118 billion hours of human data
Author
Zendle, David 1 ; Flick, Catherine 2 ; Halgarth, Darel 1 ; Ballou, Nick 3 ; Demediuk, Simon 4 ; Drachen, Anders 5 

 University of York, Department of Computer Science, York, UK (GRID:grid.5685.e) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 9668) 
 De Montfort University, Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, Leicester, UK (GRID:grid.48815.30) (ISNI:0000 0001 2153 2936) 
 Queen Mary University of London, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, London, UK (GRID:grid.4868.2) (ISNI:0000 0001 2171 1133) 
 University of York, Digital Creativity Labs, York, UK (GRID:grid.5685.e) (ISNI:0000 0004 1936 9668) 
 University of Southern Denmark, Faculty of Engineering, Odense, Denmark (GRID:grid.10825.3e) (ISNI:0000 0001 0728 0170) 
Pages
386
Publication year
2023
Publication date
2023
Publisher
Nature Publishing Group
e-ISSN
20452322
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2761659818
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2023. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.