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The US gaming industry is diversifying to include many more categories than just the "hardcore" or "casual" player, a study has found.

The report, by market research firm Parks Associates, indicates that the gamer community has developed into six distinct groups, including a new emerging "middle market" that has its own set of behaviours, motivations and spending patterns.

This middle market, which consists of social, leisure and dormant gamers, accounts for 53 per cent of the Internet gamer population and 56 per cent of retail revenue, figures from Electronic Gaming in the Digital Home show.

According to Dallas-based Parks Associates, reaching this untapped middle market represents a distinct challenge to marketers.

"If game companies insist on chasing the mythical hardcore and casual gamer segments, they will miss out on more than half of the market," said Yuanzhe Cai, director of broadband and gaming at Parks Associates.

"The market is not black and white anymore, and game marketers need to understand these finer nuances."

The six segments identified by Parks Associates are:

Power gamers - These represent 11 per cent of the gamer market but account for 30 cents of every dollar spent on retail and online games.

Social gamers - They enjoy gaming as a way to interact with friends.

Leisure gamers - They spend 58 hours per month playing games but mainly on casual titles. Nevertheless they prefer challenging titles and show high interest in new gaming services.

Dormant gamers - These love gaming but spend little time because of family, work, or school. They like to play with friends and family and prefer complex and challenging games.

Incidental gamers - They lack motivation and play games mainly out of boredom. However, they spend more than 20 hours a month playing online games.

Occasional gamers - These only enjoy playing puzzles, word and board games.

The Parks Associates survey also found that social interaction was important to all types of gamer.

"Social and leisure gamers may play simple, non-competitive games, but they want to play these games with friends and players they meet online," added Cai.

"For this type of gamer, there simply aren't that many options."

Mr Cai categorised his gamer respondents based on two key factors - time spent gaming and gamer motivation and attitudes.

"It may be difficult to quantify motivation and attitude, but that is what determines how a gamer spends time and money on gaming activities and services," Cai said.

"Leaving out gaming expenditures frees marketers from current business models and allows them to explore new ways to reach highly motivated gamers that aren't spending much on gaming."

Nearly 2,000 online US gamers took part in the survey.