Slashdot Mirror
Study Debunks Gamer Stereotypes
Ars Technica reports on a recent study by Ipsos MediaCT which evaluated gamers with respect to a large variety of social parameters. Among their findings: "55 percent of gamers polled were married, 48 percent have kids, and new gamers — those who have started playing videogames in the past two years — are 32 years old on average." Also, "In terms of hard dollars, the average gaming household income ($79,000) is notably higher than that of nongaming households ($54,000), but the value of the gamer as a marketing target can be seen in a variety of ways. 39 percent of gamers said that friends and family rely upon them to stay up-to-date about the latest technology." The press release for the study is available at IGN.
Especially the household income note. While many of us may not see it that way, games are a luxury. They're more likely to be found in a higher income household.
If only I could get laid...
Average household income... does that include the basement as well or just the main floors?
- Toby
Fits my profile exactly!
What defines a gamer? (maybe it's supposed to be computer gamer?)
The majority of console/computer/card/board gamers are people under 30. This is not even worth refuting as you can simply ask any retail worker in any store. Anywhere.
Where's the data from?
How would you poll gamers who are the extreme antisocial type?
Why is this posted as news when it's obviously wrong? (based on the article claims)
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
those who only own one or two consoles wouldn't really qualify as a gamer in my book.
You would need to own at least two consoles and a handheld or just a PC to be a gamer in my book.
And that average income is way above mine. I've been a gamer for 27 years. I don't make that much money.
They're using their grammar skills there.
and people who own just a wii are automatically disqualified.
They're using their grammar skills there.
and people who own just a wii are automatically disqualified.
Or at least embarrassed in the locker room...
I don't think they'll ever truly be *gone* until a few more choose to, uh... "de-bunk" from parents' basements.
Oooh! Burn!
ouch.....
sometimes gamers themselves create a slightly incorrect image of themselves like this warrior
If you believe that gamers use games to stay up to date on new technology you'll believe anything.
The only thing a study that says gamers are wealthy and more likely to invest in new technology and movie tickets confirms is that IGN would like to attract advertisers.
It looks like you are angry. Have you tried masturbating recently?
Actually, unless any of those retailers actually did a proper study, you're probably just seeing selective confirmation at work. Selective confirmation works like this: if you really want to believe something, you'll notice all the confirmation, and conveniently forget all the counter-examples.
One prime example of this is, well, all the "women can't drive" machos. Everyone of them can tell you a dozen anecdotes where some woman was driving only 60 in a 50 zone and "holding up the traffic". Everyone of the them is swift to hand-wave an excuse as to why it doesn't count or is just normal, if you point out a guy doing something even more stupid. But the funny thing is, last I saw a statistic from an insurance company (you know, the guys who tally up the accidents because they pay for them and have to adjust their premiums based on it), the average woman caused only _half_ as many accidents per mile driven as the average guy. Actually the absolute worst category isn't the women, it's the very young guys who drive like it proves their penis size. So that skewed perception doesn't actually match reality.
Which is why we do studies and polls, and don't rely on what Jack who works at GameStop remembers offhand.
Additionally, retailers... which retailers? Did you poll all of them? Or what?
Because for example the biggest games retailer in the USA is WallMart, not the mom-and-pop franchises that all the kiddies hang around. For every kid that hangs around EB Games all day and maybe buys a new game every two months, there'll be several moms and pops who get their stuff from WallMart and move on. And a bunch of other people get their games from electronics supermarkets like (at least here) Saturn, MediaMarkt, and the like. You won't see hordes of kids hanging around the aisles there. And I doubt that any given employee at such a big store has the time to hang around and see who takes what off the aisles.
So if you're using some games-only shop as your source, you're looking at a prime representation of the Biased Sample fallacy. What you see is actually just saying what kind of people hang around their shop, not a random sample of gamers as a whole.
It's like having a poll on Slashdot and concluding that 90% of the population are computer-savy nerds, and 50% run linux on the desktop. Or like having a poll on Sony's site and concluding that 4 times more people have a PS3 than a Wii, and 5 times more have a PSP than a DS.
Actually that "firsthand knowledge" is skewed again. Especially during the peak of the "games are for children only, and women never play games" mentality, a lot of people and especially women pretended to buy their games for a non-existent kid. Just because that seemed like the more socially acceptable kind of thing.
So unless said employee actually followed that guy/gal home and saw who's playing the game, it is _not_ first hand knowledge of it. It's at best an pretentious ass trying to defend a stereotype.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"there's no question that gaming has very much become more a social activity than a solitary one"
I wonder how old is the guy who made that comment. When I was a kid, video games were mostly a social activity. I don't remember going much to the arcade alone and most console games were fun only when played against someone else or at least trying to beat his high score. With games like Baseball or Sea Battle for the Intellivision there was no single player mode at all!
So, basically, you just told me that only the buyers know who they buy it for. Yet you insist that studies which actually asked the buyers are wrong, but the perception of some retail employee who didn't is better? Because you just used the latter as some kind of proof or at least hint that the former are BS. I'm not sure I follow that logic, then.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
And people who thinks like you do need to stop thinking about gaming as a religion, and start thinking about it as a passtime.
Clippy is that you?
They don't like to hear that grandma at the nursing home who plays gin rummy on Yahoo is a gamer. But the opinions of hardcore gamers are getting to be less and less important as the market expands. Grandma is seeing the ads that pay for gin rummy, and that's what counts.
"Gamer" no longer refers to an elite group of nerds with too much time on their hands. It means anybody who plays computer and video games (and mobile phone games, and handheld games, and...), because that's where the money comes from.
I piss off bigots.
Blasphemy!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I wonder if all of these wonderful statistics (more dates, more sports, more movies) could be confounded with the average age of gamers? If the demographic skews younger the correlation with gaming isn't necessarily causation.
... I think that has to do with the high internet usage of gamers. It starts as a place to get FAQS... then they find gaming news sites. Then tech news sites. Then the passwords to the FBI databases. Then they make a volcano lair and hold the world hostage with a single nuke. Then they get shot by James Bond. Then James bond makes a witty comment. Then the credits roll. Then the audience gets out of the theatre and stops at the bathroom...
You can see where I'm going with this. Please tell me.
those who only own one or two consoles wouldn't really qualify as a gamer in my book.
You would need to own at least two consoles and a handheld or just a PC to be a gamer in my book.
And that average income is way above mine. I've been a gamer for 27 years. I don't make that much money.
Honestly, I don't consider myself to be a gamer. It's good to know the rest of the world doesn't, either. All I do is play Warhammer Online, occasionally random games on my iPod Touch and/or GBA (yes, that's GBA, not the cool dual-screen DS), and whatever the latest Final Fantasy happens to be. I only own ONE console, the PS2.
PS.. I'm 27 and my b/f is 30, we both make 6 figures (individually, not combined). So, the "average" income may be more accurate than you think, being as it's an average, and all.
Wii players != Gamers
Now, I wonder what *leads* to the gamer stereotypes: I'd guess *that* has something to do with the common herd's disdain for intellectuals
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Quote:
If you believe that gamers use games to stay up to date on new technology you'll believe anything.
EndQuote.
oh really. really? you wanna play?
Well to play Crysis Warhead at about 40-50 Frames Per Second on my soon to be:
24 inch monitor with 2ms response time in 1900x1440 ill need a:
wicked video card like Nvidia's new 280 which was 650 bucks until ati came out with:
the 4870 x2 (550 bucks) which runs hotter (and takes 6 pin and 8 pin power) but has a 2GB proc (new record!), but it's ok because if you bump up the fan speed from 26-27 percent to around 60 you should be getting around 60C under load with air cooling, but to fit the thing in a case you might need:
an antec 1200 case that comes with 4 fans installed and 2 extra to replace possible faulty ones, but it will fit anything because it's an atx full tower and you'll be able to see my:
motherboard - im still deciding because evga comes out with some shady drivers and a lot of people prefer:
asus with their rampage x48 that has tons of room for cooling that hot card because their PCI express 2.0 slots are spaced really far apart.
2x velociraptor 150gb drives in raid 0 to run my GAMES super-fast with:
2x seagate 1.5tb drives in raid 1 (because losing that much data could make a dolphin cry, i hear), all this data will be processed by:
my intel Q9650 which i can get to 3.6 ghz with a Zalman aftermarket heatsink/fan or up to (rumor has it) 4.2 and up with water cooling. This is awesome because it has a E0 modifier instead of the C0 and with a FSB of 1333 mhz can keep up with my:
corsair (4x2gb) gddr3 1333 mhz ram. 8gigs FTW to install
windows ult 64 bit that's been tweaked with Vlite to be streamlined for my awesome awesome games.
what was my point? oh yes, you suck and if you want to GAME you have to research, overclock, driver updates, patches, installs, mods, forum hop, maps, strats, char builds, stat trees, release dates, reviews, previews ::foaming from the mouth with gamer joy::
besides, it's not the goodside of gaming that makes the news. it is always about that shiny sword of lvl50 that gets someone killed
"but the value of the gamer as a marketing target can be seen in a variety of ways. 39 percent of gamers said that friends and family rely upon them to stay up-to-date about the latest technology." as opposed to an overwhelming result for mature gamers being prominent. all statistics are bullshit. or "variously open".