Game poll reveals Mac users’ gaming habits

A poll conducted by Macworld UK reveals the gaming habits — and lack thereof — of Mac users. The poll wasn’t a scientific study, but it yielded some results that gamers, game developers and game publishers may find interesting.

More than 2,400 readers of the Macworld UK Web site recently responded to the poll, which asked the question, “I am more likely to play computer games…”

Answers included “Specially ported for Mac,” “PC games on Mac via Boot Camp,” “On a PC,” “On a PlayStation,” “On an Xbox,” “On a Nintendo,” “On something else” or “Never.”

A reassuring sign for the companies that specialize in Mac game conversions: The largest single group — 783 respondents — indicated they preferred to play games that were especially ported to the Macintosh.

Combined, a larger percentage of readers indicated that they gamed on a console, either from Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft or another company (some cited Sega’s defunct Dreamcast, for example).

Perhaps just as telling, the second-largest single responding group — 21 percent, or 514 users, indicated that they never play computer games.

“I can’t be bothered with PC/Mac-based games these days,” said one reader, speaking as part of this group. “I spend enough time in front of the Mac as it is — I don’t want to play games on it.”

A relatively small number of Mac users participating in the poll keep a PC around for gaming — 151, or 6 percent; but interestingly, an almost equal amount (159) now play Windows games on their Intel-based Mac using Boot Camp, the Apple-made software that lets new Macs run Windows XP natively.

Of the console players polled, Sony’s PlayStation 2 dominates, just like in the rest of the gaming world — 16 percent of the total participants report playing games on a Sony console. But in an interesting twist, Nintendo outpaced Microsoft among Mac users — the inverse of the industry at large — with 9 percent of the total vote and 8 percent, respectively.