Save for ER doctors, night watchmen, and infomercial addicts, most of us are probably in a deep slumber by the time our clock hits 2 a.m. each night. Not so for Motley Fool co-founder David Gardner. When he's not clearing out a hefty backlog of emails, answering posts on our discussion boards, or coming up with the next homerun stock idea, he's usually plugged in to one of his favorite pastimes: video games.

That's right, the man loves his games. He hosts a monthly board-game competition at Fool HQ. He's a regular contributor on our Computer & Video Gamers discussion board. There's even a rumor that he is the proud owner of every major game console from the Atari 2600 to the Xbox 360. The Atari 2600 made its debut in 1977, by the way. And yes, David is happily married.

Me, I usually prefer catching my Zs to duking it out with evil, zombie cyborgs on Fallout 3. Well, at least after midnight, anyway. But I do share David's enthusiasm for video games. In fact, if I had to invest all my meager savings in just one slice of the market and keep it there for 10 years, I'd pick video games faster than you can rob a sports car on Grand Theft Auto IV.

It's a numbers game
Why so much confidence in the industry? Let's start with a quick comparison between the S&P 500 and the average stock from my list of publicly traded video game companies:

S&P 500

Video Game Stocks

5-year earnings growth est.

10.2%

18%

operating margin

15%

27.3%

debt/equity

133.5%

5.6%

forward P/E

13.1

12.5 Continued...