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Videogames Attract More Women Than Boys?
Thanks to Yahoo!/Reuters for their story about a new Entertainment Software Association poll showing the demographics of gaming. According to the poll, "...26 percent of game players are women 18 or older, while 21 percent are boys 6 to 17", and the survey also revealed that "...the average gamer spends 6.5 hours a week playing games... while boys 6 to 17 average 7.3 hours per week of game time." Explicit games are also on the increase, as "13.2 percent carried a "Mature" or "M" rating, up from 9.9 percent in 2001 and under 8 percent in 2000."
If you are going to lump all women over the age of 18 together and compare that to middle school and high school boys, I guess you could say that the numbers add up in favor of the disproportionately large population.
Yeah, your gut instinct is probably more reliable than a poll that is merely based on actual research data.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Who writes this stuff? Do people read more than just the headlines anymore?
I believe the headline compares "women" and "boys." Not "women" and "men." It is a long believed notion that videogame players are "little boys playing mario in the basement." The point is that times have changed. No longer are girls given "Barbie sidescroller junk" games. The sims and more are starting to appeal to them.
In addition, the main group of gamers is getting older. People who were teens or so when Nintendo, Atari, Commodore came out are grown up now. And you can look at the way game focuses have changed as a result (the successful platforms (PS2 and XBox) are the ones catering to older guys: more violence, mayhem, etc). On the other hand, consoles like Nintendo are pointed towards the same audience (and this is probably where women are playing most). I guess I've gone off on a tangent though, so I'll stop now. My point is that, to answer your question, yes, people read the headlines.
I would see my wife playing video games. A few months ago I bought a GBA SP cause it looked cool and I kept hearing great things about Advance Wars. Little did I know that 75% of it's use is by my wife who never touched my PS2. The 3D games "make her dizzy" she says. Seems she real likes the old school platformers like Yoshi's Island. She said she used to play it as a kid(much to my surprise). My daughter is almost as bad with the GBA, except I am ALLOWED to restrict her video game time. Probably going to need to get another SP within a few months if I ever want to finish Advance Wars. *sigh*
No Sig For You
I looked through the article, but I didn't see the question they asked respondents. Consider the difference between "Have you purchased a video game in the past 12 months?", "Have you played a video game in the past 12 months?", and "Have you played a video game more than 10 times in the past 12 months?"
The first question would garner affirmative responses from parents, spouses, boy/girlfriends, grandparents and aunts/uncles. If we consider that women make most "gift" purchases, then women should show a history of purchasing video games even if they don't play games.
The second question would get hits from women whose partners pester them to play the occasional game, as well as those with idle interest in playing the occasional game.
Only the third question would really reveal whether we are talking about gamers.
That being said, I'm a married woman who loves games. And I don't work in R&D -- I'm a marketer. My husband? A software architect who finds games geeky.
Andrea
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