Gamers Enjoy Their Disc Packaging

A recent study commissioned by the Content Delivery and Storage Association (CDSA) and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) indicates that gamers are much more likely to save the DVD cases rather than store their disc somewhere else and throw the packaging away. They could have determined this by looking in any gamer's living room, but I suppose The NPD Group, who conducted the study, gets paid for hard numbers, so here they are. 88 percent of game owners store their games in their original packaging, with 8 percent claiming to save the discs in sleeves while storing the packaging, and a minuscule 5 percent saying that they throw the cases away. More interesting that those stats though is the reasoning behind them - 54 percent of gamers polled stated that they trade or sell their titles when they are done with them. No wonder GameStop is doing so well. The survey also unearthed a few interesting facts, such as the average size of a video game collection (48 titles) and the fact that 11 percent of video game households surveyed have unopened games in their collection. Hit the jump for the full results, and see how game collectors stack up against those filthy DVD collectors.Video Game and DVD Packaging Not Going Out with the Trash Few Discs Are Thrown Away or Recycled ENCINO, CA (October 28, 2008) … Rather than discarding video game and DVD packaging, consumers overwhelmingly store their video games and DVDs in their original cases according to a joint study commissioned by the Content Delivery and Storage Association (CDSA) and the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) and conducted by The NPD Group. The study also found that when consumers no longer want to keep a particular video game or DVD ttitle, they rarely throw it away or recycle it, preferring instead to give it away or sell or trade it. Eighty-nine percent of DVD owners and 88 percent of video game owners store their DVDs and video games in their original cases. Five percent of DVD owners and eight percent of video game owners store their discs in plastic sleeves but save the original cases. Only six percent of DVD owners and five percent of video game owners said they throw away or recycle the cases. When they no longer want to own a title, 45 percent of DVD owners give the title to someone else, as will 24 percent of game owners. Fifty-four percent of video game owners will trade it in or sell it; the trade/sell rate is 27 percent for DVD owners. Twenty percent of DVD owners and 17 percent of game owners store the discs. Only two percent of DVD owners and four percent of video game owners recycle or throw the product away. "In packaged home entertainment, consumers view the packaging cases as part of the product and not something to be tossed," noted Bo Andersen, President and CEO of EMA. "The cases provide product protection, allow easy title identification, and carry the artwork that is integral to the consumer's association with the title." "The issue of DVD cases being considered as packaging versus as a part of the product has been questioned by some in the industry and without consumer research we could not verify our beliefs that consumers consider the DVD case as part of the product," commented Charles Van Horn, President of CDSA. "When almost 90 percent of DVD consumers state that they store their DVDs in the original case, they have verified that they consider the case a valuable part of the DVD product." Other findings in the study included: * The average DVD household has 114 DVDs in its collection. * The average video game collection has 48 titles. * In the average DVD and video game households there is unwrapped product: o 26% of the surveyed DVD households own some unopened DVDs. o 11% of the surveyed video game households own some unopened games. The NPD Group surveyed a pre-identified sample of DVD and video game purchasers who had purchased a DVD or video game in the past 6 months. The report is based on 557 qualified DVD respondents and 562 video game respondents.