Archive notice: This article was originally published on January 24, 2008. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
A quarter of women said they liked to use games to prepare for difficult tasks, while 17 percent of men sought competition with other players, compared with seven percent of female gamers. Regional differences were also reported: 14 percent of respondents in Bavaria would value officially permitted workplace gaming as much as an extra holiday day, compared with 0.7 percent in Saxony and Thuringia.
A University of Hamburg study found that brief computer-game play during work could improve performance. Eight percent of 19- to 40-year-olds said they liked to play a short game at work, though only three percent of all respondents said they did so during working hours.
Games had become established leisure activity in Germany. Forty-nine percent of those aged 19–40 and 19 percent of those over 55 relaxed with computer games. Berlin showed the highest rate at 40 percent, versus 20 percent in Baden-Württemberg. King.com managing director Matthias Schmidt-Pfitzner said the trend was toward short, easy-to-learn games; 62 percent believed games were no longer mainly a male domain.
