Women Over 40 Biggest Online Gamers

Ooby writes "MSNBC and Reuters are reporting that women over 40 are the biggest online gamers, according to a study conducted by AOL. What's even more interesting than being outnumbered by middle aged and older women is this: 'More than a quarter of those women, the survey found, play their favorite games between midnight and 5 a.m. Women in the poll tended to favor word and puzzle games.' I thought that was prime time for FPS kids."

Comments

Survey link, facts, info

[Anonymous Coward]

The AOL press release is here. The precis: women over 40 who play games are more likely to play for extended time periods than gamers from other demographics. This does not mean that 15-year-old CounterStrike players are "outnumbered by middle aged and older women" playing PopCap.

The survey itself was conducted by Digital Marketing Services, a joint AOL/MARC Research company that does online opinion survey research. Although online polls suffer from various biases, the OpinionPlace.com polls use pre-interview demo weights to help reduce some of those skews. (Though my doubts are not, of course, dissipated by their reassurances.)

Finally, candidate for "most disturbing graf" must be this:

Despite busy schedules, female gamers over 40 make time for their preferred hobby. Twenty-eight percent of them play games between midnight and 5:00 a.m., considerably more than men or teenage game-players. In fact, nearly half of these women (44 percent) said that they spend less time watching TV or movies, reading, exercising or spending time outside as a result of their online gaming habits.

-Watchful Babbler (where's that damned account password?)