GameSpot quotes new NPD research indicating more than half of all US citizens are video gamers, which we imagine might include a bit of Solitaire and Minesweeper (the largest demographic identified is "mostly female gamers who play less than four hours a week and don't own a console"). The NPD indulges in their predilection for stereotyping, breaking down gamers into seven categories, which if we had our way would be identified by the names of the seven dwarves, or at least the seven deadly sins. Anyway, here is a bit of breakdown on the US PC gaming scene:

Though it does not lump them into a single category, NPD estimates that some 67.3 million Americans use the PC as their primary gaming platform. Up slightly at 25.9 million were "Online PC Gamers," a mostly female group who spent 73 percent of their eight hours of weekly game time online. The country's 17.3 million "Avid PC Gamers" were the most hardcore PC segment, playing 23 hours a week. Finally, "Offline PC Gamers," totaling 24.1 million, were the polar opposite of their online cousins, spending 82 percent of their time playing unconnected to the Internet.