(Multiplayer) Gaming Around The Globe? A comparison of gamer surveys in four countries Thorsten Quandt, Vivian Chen, Frans Mäyrä, Jan van Looy Abstract (150 Words) Digital gaming has become a central part of the global entertaintment industry. Despite the economic success and a growing relevance of gaming for societies, there is only limited data on gamer populations around the world. Some anecdotal evidence shows that diffusion rates and characteristics of gamers in some nations may vary greatly. Data on specific gaming modes – like multiplayer gaming – is even harder to find. In an effort to gather dependable cross-national data, this article presents several large-scale surveys in a comparative manner. The countries under analysis include Finland, Flanders, Germany, and Singapore, offering insights into varying types of societies and their adoption of gaming. The comparison between countries reveals some notable similarities, but also striking differences (for example in relation to genre preferences). However, this research also shows that more standardized and unified research efforts are needed to further improve the stiuation in comparative research on digital (multiplayer) games. Keywords: Multiplayer games, survey, comparative research, international study, diffusion data, gamer population 1. Uncharted territory: Open questions of digital games research Digital gaming has become a major entertainment sector around the globe. The games industry itself claims that gaming has surpassed the film sector in terms of financial turnaround in recent years, 1 and the interest in games is rising, as games reach the mainstream of society. The traditional stereotype of the male, adolescent player (Griffiths, Davies & Chappell 2003) is obviously not representing the major part of gamers anymore, as gaming developed into a hobby of many adults players and reaches groups previously unrelated to gaming.