Nielsen Entertainment has just finished its third Active Gamer Benchmark Study. The findings in this study is certainly something to behold.
- 117 million Americans are gamers. That’s a good bit of the population. 56% of gamers play games online, while 64% of these online gamers are women. Though two thirds of the online game market is dominated by women, men still out-number women by two-to-one when it comes to overall gaming.
- As one expects, the teen-aged gamer is the largest percentage of active gamers (40%), but there is a growing population of gamers 45 and up (13%).
- The study also shows that while games are usually thought as a solitary activity, gaming is really a social activity. Active gamers spend up to 5 hours a week playing games socially, while teens play up to 7 hours a week socially.
- Casual games are mostly played by older women, but teens and young adults are second in this ever-expanding market.
- Of all games pre-ordered or bought on the first day of launch, role-playing games are king. Also, the presumption that these role-playing games are more popular among the older crowd is gravely incorrect - teens are the biggest audience for this.
- The drive for next-gen consoles are fueled by the desire for better graphics and richer game-play.
What does all this mean for the politicians? Well, with this being election year and anti-game laws, bills, etc. flying about, the politicians backing these actions have to watch out for the up-and-coming voting crowd. When the largest group of gamers become voting age, a large majority of votes will go against these politicians. Politicians need to look to the future, and frankly, the future lies with the younger generation.
[Via GP]
"56% of gamers play games online, while 64% of these online gamers are women."
yeah ok
My WTF-ometer is bleeping. 64% women? Obviously this could be the case, but they would be the silent majority. Most of the people I've gamed online with have done so with a Y chromosome, and done so quite loudly.
What games is this majority playing? Who was tested?
And "next-gen consoles are fueled by the desire for better graphics"? Someone should tell Mr Williams of LucasArts. He's obviously confused.
Guys, you do realize that online gaming is more than just XBox Live? A little thing called Second Life is a huge game online in the PC arena and is fairly swarming with women. Puzzle Pirates has more women than men playing. MMORPG's such as WoW and EQ attract lots of women as well.
While most people you have heard are male, you really have no idea what gender the person you can't hear is.
But it's all down to stats. Stats can made to look anyway you want them to. Without knowing all of the information about how the research was done it's impossible to refute by mere speculation.
You see, I never anticipated Puzzle Pirates being included - obviously a mistake on my part. Do flash games really count as online gaming though?
Obviously, single player flash games embedded in a web site shouldn't be included, but multiplayer gaming is multiplayer gaming. Period. I don't believe Puzzle Pirates was Flash based, but it is most definately an MMO and counts.
"But it's all down to stats. Stats can made to look anyway you want them to. Without knowing all of the information about how the research was done it's impossible to refute by mere speculation."
Exactly. My point was, though, not the fact that that large of online players were women. My point was that politicians need to heed the fact that so many gamers, active at that, are still below voting age and they are just gleaning of the non-gamer activity/ignorance of parents of these gamers. This study just focuses on "Active Gamers," if we take ESA's lovely little study, 69% of the US population are gamers, active or not.
"And "next-gen consoles are fueled by the desire for better graphics"? Someone should tell Mr Williams of LucasArts. He's obviously confused."
I myself scratch my head at that - then I realized, these are the active gamers. There's still a whole market of gamers that the last time they played a game was minesweeper in the office.
So basically they included stupid cell phone games and flash based games or something... you take any major online franchise and you'll find it's mostly guys.
I think their term of "online game" is games that are played online.
No ASD, you still aren't hearing what is being said. They are saying, and I'll be as clear as possible this time, that 64% of online gamers are women. That means that 64% of the people participating in multiplayer games online are women, according to this study.
Not cell phone games, they aren't mulitplayer online games. Not most flash games, they are not multiplayer online games. Games like Halo 2, Puzzle Pirates, Bang Howdy, GRAW, Second Life, FF 11, WoW, I can go on but I'm sure by now (I hope) you get the picture.
I can see that a bunch of you are a tad skeptical about how they did that study. Does anyone know how they did it?
well thanks for clearing it up for me twistedfate, for if what you say is true then that just tells me that the study is indeed incorrect. I realize there are girl gamers out there, I've encountered plenty... but overall, more women than men? Sorry, but no.
Without knowing specifics of the research you can't say it's incorrect. You may not agree with it based on your experiences, but I feel confident in saying that you haven't played every online game in existence. So your experiences are limited in scope and do not constitute a random sampling of gaming habits. In the games I've played online the women have outnumbered the men, so my experiences directly contradict yours. I'm not saying the study is correct, I'm saying none of us here are qualified to pass judgement on it's correctness based on our limited experiences.
Well, i guess i can't argue that, i'd only look stupid trying. May i ask what games you've played that had more women?? I'm just curious for I know I've never played one that was like that.
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