The next part of our board gamer survey deals with the folks we play with. There’s no doubt that much of the importance of board gaming is a hobby is the fact it gets us playing with our friends, family, and even strangers. Games are a unique way to mediate the world and to have fun with other folks at the same time.

We broke down the “who do you play with” into the main groupings we thought would be applicable to most – family/kids, partners, friends, game groups, solo gaming. We also took a little look at where people game, everyone’s time spent gaming in a month, and heard why some people don’t get to game as much as they’d like.

A number of these questions were available to choose multiple answers for – there may be crossover and percentages show that – but it’s interesting to see what comes out in the data regardless. Let’s take a look at the who, when and where of our gaming habits.

And a breakdown of the image’s data:

Gaming with a partner

• Do you have a partner/partners? 79.2% of respondents have a partner
• Do you game with a partner? 47% of gamers with partners always game with them, 45% of gamers with partners sometimes game with them, and a tiny 7.4% never game with a partner!
• Was your partner/s into board gaming before they met you? Most weren’t, but around 25% were. And 15% of partners got into gaming together, aww.
• Do you game primarily with – most with a partner and friends/groups, but 12% of folks game primarily with their partner.

Gaming with kids/family

• Do you game with family members? Almost 3/4 of respondents game with their family.
• What’s the age range of the people you play with? There are a lot of folks who game with family members of all ages. Primarily 25-34 and 35-44 year olds, with the next largest demographic being unders 12 years old, making up 42% of the age group people game with.
• How often do you game with your family/kids? 29% of gamers play with their family/kids every week (awesome!). There’s also a large group (22%) who just game with their families on special occasions/holidays. The other 50-ish% game either every couple of weeks, once or twice a month, or every couple of months.
• Does your family game without you? 43% of people say yes, their families game without them.

Solo gaming

• Are you a solo gamer? Almost 45% of survey respondents reported they’re solo gamers.
• Are you primarily a solo gamer, or do you also game with others? Of those folks, most – 92% – game primarily with others, but solo occasionally. A very small amount mostly game solo (7%) or only solo (1%).
• Do you play games that are designed specifically for solo play, or otherwise? Quite a lot – 54% – choose to play games designed specifically for solo play. 88% of gamers will play the solo option in games that also play with groups. But an industrious 17% of respondents in this category have created solo variants for games that didn’t already have them!

Gaming with friends and groups

• Outside of family, who do you game with? Overwhelmingly, FRIENDS. 85.8% of respondents play games with friends. A significant number of people game with other convention attendees, and even cooler than that – almost a quarter game with their co-workers. Pretty rad! Almost 65% of respondents play with a small, regular game group, and 42% of gamers also play with others at open gaming events.
• Where do you game? We mostly game at home, or at our friends’ homes. 41% of us also take advantage of playing at a friendly local game store or similar commercial venue. Showing their rise in popularity, over 25% of respondents play at a board game pub/cafe. And don’t forget the internet! 21% of folks game online using various platforms
• On average, how much time in a month do you spend board gaming? While there were a reasonable amount of people who spent 25+ (17%), 20-25 (11%), 15-20 (15.5%) hours a week gaming, the majority of respondents – 21% – spend 6-10 hours per week gaming.
• Do you organize game events? Yes! 45% of us organize game events, and a further 35% of us sometimes do.
• If you don’t get to play board games as much as you’d like, what is holding you back? There’s a lot of time, work, kids and generally life that get in the way for gamers. A few quotes from people include: “Work/lack of time”, “Lack of time and enough players”, “People to play with”, “family, work, life, not being retired yet!”, “Family and work/school obligations”, “Lack of free time – mine and/or others”, “Other demands of life”, “Scheduling – everyone is very busy”, “Time and also space (at home)”.