For December, among American gamers who play Warcraft, Nielsen finds it played on average over 11 hours / week.

Years ago, I was a “Nielsen family.” The unwieldy set-top box, hard-wired into the TV and the Cable Box, was a mysterious, exciting presence, and leant an air of authority to my cable TV watching choices (however dubious they seemed to girlfriends at the time).

I don’t own a TV now, but do have several game consoles and a WoW account. It seems that since the mid-90′s, Nielsen and I both have changed. Now, Nielsen tracks games: mobile, console, and PC. And, according to the latest data, World of Warcraft continues to be the most popular PC game title in the US.

For October 2008 specifically, WoW netted a 12.509 share, and was played (among people who play PC games) an average of just over 9 hours / week. [As in TV, a "share" is a percentage of total audience: Thus, 12.5 gamers out of 100 were playing WoW in October.]

Nielsen also estimates the Total Minutes Played (out of all PC games measured): WoW here earned a 62.280%.

For December, among American gamers who play Warcraft, Nielsen finds it played on average over 11 hours / week.

It is interesting to speculate about how many “PC Gamers” there are in the US. While they provide no specific definition of “PC Gamer” in this press release, Pew has noted that upwards of 53% of American adults play at spend some time playing computer games.

According to Nielsen, 0.723% of “PC Gamers” are playing Warcraft during any given minute.