Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Women Over 40 Biggest Online Gamers

Posted by simoniker on from the lies-and-damned-statistics dept.

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."

7 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. I -knew- it! by Mordant · · Score: 5, Funny

    Man, that explains why that choad who keeps kicking my ass at CounterStrike uses 'MrsRobinson' as her handle, and keeps making off-the-wall references to Botox and estrogen therapy while she's fragging my ass into oblivion!

  2. Women over 40 online by schnits0r · · Score: 5, Funny

    I tinhk you misunderstood what they mean by "biggest".

    --


    -------
    Support Indy Music. Buy
  3. Percentage by ParticleGirl · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What percentage of the overall survey participants were women over 40? Because these findings state that a higher percentage of women over 40 play games daily than the interviewed men or teens. So if in their survey of 3500 people there are only 100 women over 40, but most of them play games all the time, it doesn't mean that they outnumber the men or teens. It just means that, if women over 40 are online, or gamers, or computer literate (we don't know what the universe of the survey is-- did they interview everyone in a games forum somewhere? Call random households? Send email to people with AOL accounts?) they're very likely to play wordgames in the wee hours of the morning.

    Be careful with statistics. Especially if you're trying to figure out if you're outnumbered [yet].

    --
    Do something about world hunger. Click here
  4. The common stereotype by philthedrill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My first thought was, "Woah" until I read the article. The first thought that comes to my mind when someone says "gamer" is someone who plays an FPS or RTS, but with "games" defined in the much broader sense, this is less shocking (although the late hours are somewhat of a surprise). Plus, most computers can play these games without the latest hardware or fastest connection.

    1. Re:The common stereotype by *weasel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Exactly - when they include puzzle, card and word-games in your 'online gaming' survey, they're going to get results that are going to be used disingenuously.

      This is analogous to suggesting that women play the majority of 'games' in real life, because the number of female Bridge clubs vastly outweighs the gender seperation in professional athletics.

      The qualification of 'online game' to begin with is the problem.

      No-one would likely argue that there is a gender distribution in free low-tech online games roughly consistent with population distribution overall.

      The interesting question of 'women in games' is: why aren't women playing console games, massmogs, multiplayer strategy/fps/rpg/etc?

      Truly, what end does this survey tell us? That women aren't afraid of the computer or the internet? Did anyone ever assert that being technophobes is responsible for the gender gap in commercial gaming?

      Simply, there are more people playing poker on yahoo games alone than are playing counterstrike. There are vastly more people who play games on AOL than all massmogs combined. The male-dominated games become statistically insignificant when the net is cast this wide. Particularly when they obviate distinctions between gamers willing to pay for games, pay monthly for games, and deal with 3d cards and driver updates to play online games.

      Again, the only questions that are interesting are: where are the women in commercial online gaming, and why aren't they showing up?

      and this survey answers neither.

      --
      // "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
  5. Wake up.... by AutumnLeaf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and smell the coffee. There is a huge game community on the internet that has nothing to do with frags, and it's bigger than the frag-oriented community. Friendlier too. And literate. Th3y can sp311, and form complete sentences.

  6. Survey link, facts, info by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    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?)