Women Over 40 Biggest Online Gamers 78
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."
"Word games" (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, I'm nowhere near 40 -or- female, and prefer CounterStrike, but hey, gotta stimulate the brain once in a while, right?
Sure is (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sure is (Score:4, Interesting)
It's sad, but I have to raise my hand too. Since I bought my mother a computer several years ago she's become a fanatical "online gamer". She started off with a Bingo game on Yahoo which moved to Pogo.com I believe, then she started playing other games like some balloon popit game. Then she really started getting into it heavy when she moved on to using Yahoo Messenger WITH voice and camera. This is a 65 year old grandmother I'm talking about chatting on Yahoo Messenger like she's a 14 year old freshman. WTF? Why can't I have a normal mother that just bakes cookies instead of talking to dirty old men on the Internet? (she's a widow).
Re:Sure is (Score:4, Funny)
Because your moms is human too. How do you think you got here?
I -knew- it! (Score:5, Funny)
Balanced survey? (Score:5, Funny)
"The survey was conducted online with 3,613 respondents between mid-December and mid-January, the company said."
I guess they forgot to mention that the survey was only open between midnight and 5 a.m. during that period and placed only on webpages containing word games and puzzles?
who conducted the survey? (Score:5, Insightful)
better link for survey results (Score:5, Informative)
so it wasn't run through AOL, but an outside firm, which probably got a more representative sample.
But, there's lots of interesting statistics to go through. such as "Nearly Twice as Many Adults Have Played Internet Games for More than Eight Consecutive Hours than Teenagers"
Re:better link for survey results (Score:2)
That would be because you only get to be a teen for 10 years whereas you get to be an adult from 20-Death. There are WAY more adults than teens in the world. Way more than double. I hate it when they give stats with no context.
Re:better link for survey results (Score:2)
That would be because you only get to be a teen for 10 years whereas you get to be an adult from 20-Death. There are WAY more adults than teens in the world. Way more than double. I hate it when they give stats with no context."
Well noted. In fact, you only get to be a teenager for 7 years (13 to 19). With the life expectancy
Re:who conducted the survey? (Score:1, Funny)
My Ma (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My Ma (Score:1)
Re:My Ma (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:My Ma (Score:4, Interesting)
Women over 40 online (Score:5, Funny)
Percentage (Score:5, Insightful)
Be careful with statistics. Especially if you're trying to figure out if you're outnumbered [yet].
Re:Percentage (Score:2, Insightful)
-Mark Twain (quoting Leonard Courtney)
The common stereotype (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The common stereotype (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:The common stereotype (Score:5, Interesting)
First, this is purely misogynistic. If this was the case then no-one would be a 'new' player in counter-strike, quake, or unreal. Unless you're suggesting that women are somehow genetically inferior to men, then one would expect that as many men would pass on multiplayer games as women. By extension, this would suggest that only as many men would take to multiplayer games as women do.
Seeing as how males are taking up the hobby more quickly than females - there just isn't much logical weight to that argument.
I mean, if you played basketball in real life against Michael Jordan every day and constantly got your ass kicked, would YOU want to keep playing?
Shouldn't they run into the Michael Jordan of Hearts or Bridge just as often though? Perhaps though, that's part of it. On Yahoo, you can see the ranking of the other players, and generally have a good idea of your chances at winning.
This is of course completely discounting the lack of importance that card game players typically place on winning as the ultimate indication of their having fun.
Re:The common stereotype (Score:2)
By the way, in my statement I wasn't bashing women... quite the opposite in fact. My coworkers in question are men. They
Re:XBox rules!! (Score:1)
I'm Sorry But Someone Has To Say It (Score:4, Funny)
Wake up.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wake up.... (Score:2)
Online bridge (Score:4, Insightful)
Most conversations go about like:
hi all, need 1 more?
wlc
glp
wdo, gtp
sry p
Which is about as verbose as most other online games I've participated in over the last 8-9 years. (God, has it been that long?)
--Jeremy
Sims Online (Score:4, Funny)
For some reason, women love the Sims games. More than likely, they're up at all hours running their little Sims' lives.
I guess that keeps them from running our lives, though. </flamebait>
Re:Sims Online (Score:1)
I love the Sims too though and I'm a guy. I don't have any of those wacky expansion packs, just the original I bought a few years ago to try out though. I'm probably similar to the majority of guys playing that game though: Get the house with the two women in it, greet, talk, compliment, talk, compliment, talk, compliment, hug, give a backrub, hug, hug, hug, talk, compliment, give a gi
Re: Beavis (Score:2)
<voice char="Butthead">Uh, Beavis. Calm down. Huh, huh.</voice>
Re:Sims Online (Score:2)
They're just practicing, honing up their skills. Then, when it comes time for you, you have no chance.
Frag and Stitch sessions (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not sure if it's statistically significant, but a 50% gamer ratio at a sewing class has gotta mean something!
Big deal (Score:4, Insightful)
Real gaming is interesting to me because it's something new, or at least a significant transformation. There's nothing surprising or interesting about learning that middle aged women are taking their solitaire games online. Yawn.
coolest online game... (Score:4, Interesting)
isketch [isketch.net], which is basically Pictionary in an online/chatroom setting. It picks a sketcher, gives 'em a word, and then awards points based on who gets it first. I love games that are creative as well as addictive.
Poor Group to conduct a study of gamers with... (Score:4, Interesting)
Most serious gamers wouldn't be on AOL, and most likely would be on a local ISP or some type of broadband.
What's even more interesting than being outnumbered by middle aged and older women is
Not really, since the study is skewed by only surveying AOL'ers who tend not to be or use AOL for online gaming. AOL online gamers may mostly be middle aged women, but that doesn't mean all online gamers are mostly middle aged women.
It would be like doing a study in a urban area, like say Detroit and from those statistics trying to prove all of America is a ghetto. It just doesn't fit.
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."
of course, because male or female, old or young, if they wanted to play a FPS, MMO, etc they would migrate off of AOL to a local dialup where they would get better bandwidth, or more likely to a broadband connection
Attempt to do this study to comcast, speakeasy, roadrunner, etc and you will end up with the typical 18-30 year old males being the most common type of gamer. It would be interesting to see the genre breakdown though.
Re:Poor Group to conduct a study of gamers with... (Score:4, Interesting)
Just because AOL is doing the study doesn't mean they're only polling their own users. After all, a political pollster will (usually) want everybody's opinion, whether or not that person says they're of the same political party as the candidate who's doing the poll...
Women over 40...First Person Shooters (Score:3, Funny)
Survey link, facts, info (Score:5, Informative)
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 [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:
-Watchful Babbler (where's that damned account password?)Biggest? (Score:2, Funny)
Great, so they are old, but do you really have to call them "fat," too?
My statistic (Score:1, Offtopic)
The Survey (Score:3, Funny)
1. Compared to men or teens, how much time do 40 year old women spend playing online games?
o 0-10% More
o 11-20% More
o 21-30% More
o 31-40% More
o 41-50% More
o 51-60% More
2. Are 40 year old women, on average, more likely to play online games than men or teens?
o Yes
o No
o Note Sure
3. Do 40 year old women convert their online relationships into real-life relationships, if they in fact have any online relationships?
o Yes
o No
o Note Sure
4. Are you a 40 year old woman?
o Yes
o No
o Not Sure
5. Have you or do you plan to respond to this survey?
o Yes
o No
o Not Sure
6. If you answered yes to the above two questions, do you spend less time watching TV or movies, reading or being physically active because of your online game play?
o Yes
o No
o Not Sure
o I did not answer yes to the above two questions
o I'm not sure if I answered yes to the above two questions
7. Who is conducting this survey?
o Services for Digital Marketing
o Digital Marketing Services
o Marketing Services, Digital
o Marketing Digital Services
8. When do you prefer to play online games?
o Midnight - 1:00 AM
o 1:00 AM - 2:00 AM
o 2:00 AM - 3:00 AM
o 3:00 AM - 4:00 AM
o 4:00 AM - 5:00 AM
9. Which of the following cities strikes you as most "game happy:"
o Chicago and New York
o San Francisco and Orlando
o Atlanta and Boston
o Paris and Berlin
10. (Last question) How many people are responding to this survey?
o 12,214
o 15
o 1,243
o 7,654
o 3,613
11 (We lied) This survey was conducted between:
o Mid-December and mid-January
o Early December and early January
o Late December and late January
Biggest online gamers? (Score:1, Redundant)
I'm really sorry. I couldn't help it.
I foresee a new website coming soon... (Score:1)
Who is probably browsing more? (Score:3, Interesting)
But while we are playing our fps games (ad free), the women are online playing their web based games and suddenly this window pops up asking them to take a survey. Of course the it's going to be a little biased.
Re:Who is probably browsing more? (Score:2)
On the other hand, this would also show a broader base of AOL users than the typical 10-year-old boy.
Oh you've done it now.. (Score:2)
Yep, Survey is BS. (Score:5, Informative)
This skews the data in all sorts of wierd ways, starting with the people taking it are the types who would sign up for such programs on the internet. Not to mention, how many 15 year old males care about Frequent flyer miles? Hell, how many savvy internet users would give their personal information up for some survey scam?
The conclusion drawn from this survey should be "Women over 40 are more likely to have gator installed on their machine and participate in stupid online surveys for some minimal payoff".....ok maybe that was a bit harsh....
If there is one truth about statistics in general, it's that if you play around with the numbers enough you can make surveys say whatever you want.
Oh. (Score:1)
Well, of course... (Score:2, Funny)
Well, yeah. Midnight to 5:00 a.m. is pr0n time for those other demographics.
--Jeremy
Hmmm...age or waistline? (Score:1)
The title omits units, so perhaps both?
FPS Kids? (Score:3, Insightful)
So what you're saying is... (Score:2)
LK
Who cares. (Score:1)
Nintendo has been trying to expand the market, with Animal Crossing and the Mario Party games which, while not geared towards women, are appealing to everybody. The Sims are big in this also.
But that it is. Since there is a big supply of online games that aim to this segment,W>40 (Yahoo, etc), there is no way EA can milk some big bucks
Needs to be said (Score:1)