NPD: 20% of Americans play games on social networks

Are you an American? Are you in a room with a lot of people? OK, look at the person to your left. Now look at the person to your right. Now look at a couple of people behind you. Don't stare! You don't want them to think you're weird, do you?

OK, now, would you believe that, according to a new NPD report, one of those people (20%) has played games on a social network in the last three months. It's true.

What's that? You say that person is you? You say that person is obviously you, because you're currently reading a blog devoted to social games? Well I guess that means no one else in your eyeline has played a social games then. Because that's how statistics works, right?

Oh, you're in a cubicle-filled office, you say. In that case, I can almost guarantee all five of you do nothing but play games on Facebook all day, furtively hoping your boss won't notice. But that means somewhere else there are 20 people that don't play social games at work or at home, and they are doing their best to keep our economy going during this downturn. How do you sleep at night?

Anyway, of you and your four Farmville-addicted co-workers, NPD says 1.75 of you (35%) have never played a game outside of social networks and one-half of one of you (10%) actually spends real world money on these games. It might seem odd that fractional people can do either of those things, but hey, the numbers don't lie.