Average Gamer Is 37 Years Old 295
kolbe writes "A new study from the Entertainment Software Association suggests that the average age of today's gamers is between the 37 and 41 years old. If true, does this mean that game studios should be adjusting their demographics accordingly? Is Generation X the next 'baby boomer' market for the gaming industry?"
its only the beginning (Score:4, Insightful)
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I would however take the numbers with a grain, or truckload, of salt. The report nicely avoids explaining it's methodology and likely uses a broad definition of games (Farmville and minesweeper anyone?) and gamers (usually based on the age of the person doing the buying). Moreover it's an industry study which has an interest in projecting the
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The report nicely avoids explaining it's methodology and likely uses a broad definition of games (Farmville and minesweeper anyone?)
Yes yes, everyone knows that only "REAL GAMES" are multiplayer endless remakes and sequels of first person shooters. Its a very tired old meme that should be allowed to expire.
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First of all, you're ignoring whole genres of games here, which are more popular with the older crowd. Some because they can be played turn based (like the Civilization and Baldur's Gate series), and others for other reasons. I love flight simulators, and RPGs.
And as for Bejeweled, there are competitions for it, which is more than
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There is a really simple explaination to this age (of which I'm a member....).
This group is pretty much the right age to have grown up with the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, Apple II, and [insert your favorite classic computer here]. We transitioned to the Nintendo and Genesis when those became available.....and our ranks grew. We transitioned to the Super Nintendo and PS1......and our ranks grew. We transitioned to the Game Cube and the PS2 and the Xbox.....and our ranks grew. We transitioned to the Wii an
Re:its only the beginning (Score:4, Insightful)
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Maybe those interested in this "social crap" are actually more interested in new technologies than you are? Games are old, "social crap" is driving the advancement of networking and database technologies.
I think it's more likely that you just prefer to play games than be particularly sociable. That's not meant as an insult, I'm the same. Though I do also spend some time chatting on "social crap" like Slashdot and Facebook.
I'm 27 by the way. I grew up watching technology advance too, I remember typing in cod
Probably not, actually (Score:3)
Probably not, actually. The median age in the USA is 36.8 years old.
Basically at this point the average gamer is just the average guy. For every guy under 37 that plays video games, there's someone over 37 who also plays video games, AND that's essentially the exact same information you'd get by their ages alone.
Really, gaming has already spread through all age segments. You have preschoolers playing edutainment games, and you even have 80 year old grandmas in WoW raids, and everything in between. (But not
Re:Stereotypes are true? (Score:4, Insightful)
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What are you some kind of racist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo_women [wikipedia.org]. There you go a matriarchal society where all the males remain with the mothers, aunts, sisters and nieces through out their lives. Zero divorce and no child support.
Hmm, are you a slave to your relationship, just jealousy force you to slander other lifestyles and, does the shame and humiliation of your extended bathroom visits haunt you.
Big thing when it comes to gaming design for older generations "BIGGER FONTS" at high resolut
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That being said, I hope these 40 year old gamers aren't still living in their's mother's basement. Seriously.
You obviously still far too young to realise what you said is quite offensive to many people. I am 37 years old, not 40 you insensitive clod. NEVER round ages up.
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Having blown tens of thousands of dollars on rent when I was single - that actually seems like a pretty good deal to me.
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You can't put a price to adulthood, if you ask me. Not to mention the freedom for both parties involved. (Also, my rent was pretty low.)
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Actually I'm pretty sure that's par for the course everywhere in the world outside of the US. It's the exception, not the rule, that parents kick their kids out of the house as soon as legally allowed, leaving them drowing in bills and rents before they've even finished school, never mind managed to get a well-paying job.
This was only really possible thanks to America's cheap land that enabled surburban expansion whereby anyone even on minimum wage could afford a cheap house, and the productive economy that
As it should (Score:3)
If including the casual gamers "throws the numbers", then it throws them to their correct value. If someone plays enough Angry Birds or whatever, they are gamers.
Besides, it's pretty stupid to divide some genres as not really games, as this basically would mean a lot of us who started in the early 80's never actually played a game. Most of the games that were available on a ZX-81 or ZX Spectrum or C-64 or even early IBM PC games, didn't even have the complexity of cell phone games these days.
Heck, the whole
Middle age and I hate games (Score:2)
I absolutely detest playing games, programming them on the other hand, that I love.
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I absolutely detest playing games, programming them on the other hand, that I love.
I love to program, but after doing it all day at work I quite enjoy a diversion in the form of games. Mostly it's with the kids and not very deep titles, but definitely helps to unwind.
Re:Middle age and I hate games (Score:5, Interesting)
I have heard it suggested a few times that this is true of all game designers, that when a real designer plays a game, all he sees are the design decisions; the game itself can't be seen behind the mechanics, and that a good game for a designer is a well-designed game, which is not necessarily related to having fun with the gameplay. Richard Bartle once wrote an interesting blog entry [youhaventlived.com] about a zone's design in World of Warcraft; he definitely doesn't see and play the game like most people.
I am glad people like you exist, because that's why I have games. I think you're really missing out sometimes, though.
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Cheers for the Bartle link - not an article I've read before. +1 virtual mod point for you.
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I don't know about other people, but I can definitely parse out and separate good design decisions from fun gameplay. An easy example is World of Warcraft. It's chock full of good design decisions that somehow still fail to be "fun" (although I do still find raiding fun, primarily for the social aspect and the personal achievement aspects, there are tons of leveling, pvp, and class balance issues where brilliant design decisions have been made to solve a problem but where the brilliant design decision eithe
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a good game for a designer is a well-designed game, which is not necessarily related to having fun with the gameplay.
If the gameplay isn't fun, the design isn't good.
Re:Middle age and I hate games (Score:4, Funny)
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I'm like this, although not as extreme. I get bored with playing games quite easily. The number of games I've actually completed in my life can be counted on one hand. On the flip side, I have a source code folder chocka-block with half finished game concepts, and I'm always dreaming up new game ideas I'd like to implement...
-Jar
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When I turned 30, I've finally bothered to sit down and seriously try to write the game I've been planning ever since about a year after I got my ZX Spectrum.
Before now, I've started it in BASIC, Z80 assembler, Visual BASIC, x86 assembler, Java and C++, (in roughly that order) and a ton of other languages in order to learn the language, and never got to where I felt it was coming together. A year or so ago I sat down with another project, ported it to an ARM embedded device using C without much hassle at a
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By a strange coincidence, TH is one of the inspirations for my game (though my idea has nothing to do with hospitals or theme parks, and will hopefully be a bit more "grown-up" - TH was rather Fisher-Price in terms of gameplay, graphics and humour).
Aw, if only Bullfrog were still around in their original form...
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I like both.
However, as a gamer falling into the middle age category as well I can understand your hatred for games to some extent. Although I'm still spending quite some time on gaming, I'm buying less and less games because games have become more and more stupid. I've been wondering for a long time why studios and producers don't make games that are more suitable for halfway mature people. With almost no exceptions the marketing and the content still seem to be devised for really stupid 14-15 year old boy
Serious? (Score:2)
I turn 37 this year. I figured I was written off as "completely irrelevant" as a gamer, a hacker, a consumer, as.... anything.... probably more than a decade ago.
37 is an awkward age to be.
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I don't know if the advertisers and producers have good evidence to
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I would imagine that chasing younger viewers has something to do with the fact that they are potentially customers for a longer span of time.
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There's rock-solid evidence that younger people are more influenced by advertising. Thus the primary target is old-enough-to-have-money but at the same time young-enough-to-be-influencable. To a certain degree younger children influence the purchases of their parents offcourse, so those too get targeted.
Thing is, most habits are pretty well-formed before you're 40, and odds are you'll stick with many of them for life. Sure you'll drop -some- old stuff, and pick up -some- new stuff. But at a rate nowhere nea
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Consider how music-taste changes 10-25 versus 30-45. The first is a huge change, and probably most of the music-styles and/or artists that'll be your favourites for life, you learn to know in this age, the second age-span ? Not so much. You'll maybe get to know a few new artists, mostly such as play in genres you already know and like.
Having been there done that, I can assure you for the vast majority of people, its not some organic brain malfunction, but more like:
10-25 = I love whatever the music industry execs are pushing today. Whatever is on the top 40 station, is what all my friends will listen to, so I will too. And I, and all my friends, will wisely all rebel against "the man" in perfect conformity with each other and the music industry execs.
30-45 = F those music company execs and the trash they push. I'm not going to listen
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You are not written off as a dad :-)
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37? Awkward?
Nah!
It's a prime age my friend.
Nah (Score:5, Insightful)
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We're all still mentally 15, so targeting us with boobs and explosions is still cool.
Yeah... those were good times... no goatse, I mean.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re:Who has time to play? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're doing it wrong?
Seriously... I don't think I could survive more than a couple of 60 hour weeks in a row, and neither would I want to. if that realyl is the situation where you are then I suggest you might want to look into other lines of work.
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I work 32 hours a week, but I'm still swamped with the care for my kid and other commitments. I still manage to find some time for the occasional game (currently playing The Witcher 2), as well as two table-top RPG groups (one bi-weekly, one monthly). The gaming does put some stress on my schedule, though.
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but I'm still swamped with the care for my kid
And that is merely #1 on my list of a thousand reasons to never have kids. I spent enough time growing up being miserable because I had no free time - I'm not going to be foolish enough to do that to myself for 20-30 years now that I'm older.
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60 hour weeks too stressful for more than a couple of weeks in a row??
I've been working 60+ hour weeks for several years now. You know what I was working before that? 80+ hour weeks. interspersed with 90 and 100+ hour weeks.
I'm just wondering how old you are... A lot of the 40+ generation seems to think everything started going down hill with the generation born in the 80's. If you're under 30 then you and another person I met recently may be confirming the stereotype >_
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I personally am aware that its detrimental to performance. However sometimes you've gotta do what you've gotta do.
When your normal performance requires a lot of thought but then you really need some stuff moved in the warehouse and theres no one to do it, you do your regular job and then do that job too.
Also its not legal here for a company to force an employee to work those kinds of hours. However where I come from theres this thing called responsibility and dedication that cause a lot of folks to end up d
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Then you're crazy, IMHO.
I work a little under 40 hours a week. I have worked 60+ during times of exceptional need and I think three weeks of that is my current record. But I will never accept that as a normal working week.
If you're being asked to go into emergency mode more than a couple of times a year then your managers are getting things badly wrong. If you're being asked to do 60+ constantly, and agree to, then (IMHO) your priorities in life are all screwed up.
I was born late 70s, so I'm in my 30s. I do
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I volunteered myself for those hours. In some cases the bosses don't even know how long I worked. The up side for me is that I get results. Thats seen and valued more than anything else, especially given the current economic climate.
I'm Canadian by the way, and I'll probably be semi-retired by the time I'm your age.
I think you're crazy that you'll settle for doing less than your absolute best and then being able to enjoy the spoils of your hard effort for a long time afterwards.
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Who said I had shares in anything? A lot of the work I do now is purely for myself, and I only deal in tangible assets, not figments of speculators imaginations, which is most of what the stock market is.
Previously the work has been in situations, not where we didn't want to pay someone to do it, but there simply was no one that we could get TO do it. These are the places where the opportunities are. They exist in every company from time to time. I am pretty damn good at changing hats, which was why I ended
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Now there's a man who has his priorities sorted out!
What defines a gamer (Score:2)
My dad is almost 60 and he will play Worms Armageddon with me on the X360 sometimes when he comes to visit. Does this mean he is a gamer?
I've always thought, there are people who play games, just like there are people who go to the movies, but just the act of doing that doesn't make them "Movie Buffs" or "Gamers"
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I've always thought, there are people who play games, just like there are people who go to the movies, but just the act of doing that doesn't make them "Movie Buffs" or "Gamers"
The act of going to a movie makes one a moviegoer, and the act of playing a game ("gaming") makes one a gamer. HTH, HAND.
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Exactly. Where's the link for this article? Are all the housewives and secretaries playing Farmville "gamers"?
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I like your distinction, it sums things up quite nicely.
From now on, I'll call anyone who has played any kind of electronic entertainment "gamers", and anyone who is actively engaged in gaming, and digesting related news "gaming enthusiasts".
If there are "casual" gamers who are "hardcore" about their games, they'd certainly belong in the category of gaming enthusiasts. However, the vast majority who only dabble in gaming as a way of passing time, wouldn't fall into the category.
Gaming enthusiast as a term w
not true (Score:2)
Yes, I play Dungeons and Dragons Online and most people are 20-40 and it's great because kids get really annoying in games (I'm
Not all games are FPS (Score:2)
This report is too limited to have any value.
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Have you ever stopped to think that you perceive there to be more youngsters in games because they're the ones screaming down the headset on XBox live to you and spamming like the children they are on chat channels in WoW and so forth, whilst the older ones who are a bit more mature quietly just keep to enjoying themselves?
It's likely also that teenagers spend more time in games simply because they have more spare time, which may also give the perception that they're more common, but this is about numbers o
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I completely agree. Assuming any kind of balanced average, the result implied that there are is a comparable number of 59 year olds playing video games as there are 15 year olds. This is not a credible statistic.
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My WoW guild actively avoids recruiting people under 18 (most of our players are 25-40 and married with children), and I'd say about 9/10 of our applicants are 14-22.
Does that mean... (Score:2)
Does that mean that if you are 42 years old then you are an above average gamer?
So that's who is kicking my butt in multiplayer! I don't know if that is a better or worse than it being some 12 year old punk.
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Haha, had the same thought. Unfortunately, these questionnaires are probably faulty by definition. Most teenagers and kids don't have the time or interest to respond to demographic questions, sliding the bias to higher ages. Moreover many kids just declare a higher age than they really have to avoid "limited version" of a game (no blood, gore, etc).
I would expect the average age to be that of a university student (18-24). Of course it gets higher and higher every year because many of us have grown up with g
Flight simmers are older (Score:5, Insightful)
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You should get a PPL and a light aircraft then.
He said he had thousands of dollars of gear, not hundreds of thousands. And certain medical conditions that afflict gamers will deny you a PPL.
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You should get a PPL and a light aircraft then.
Yeah like he's going to afford a war surplus A-10 anytime soon.
I found PPL training and light aircraft flight to be a dramatically different experience than flight sims.
Also its well known in the professional community that sim time totally screws up a real world pilot. Theres plenty of sims with nice graphics and realistic controls, but few/none with accurate simulation of controlled airspace, FAA law enforcement, etc. And I know personally that it horribly screws up judgement, in my sims I pretty much n
original (Score:5, Informative)
Heres the original pdf of the study.
http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2011.pdf [theesa.com]
its up from 34 last year apparently. So gamers are ageing 3 years for every 1.
No quite (Score:2)
More older people are playing games year on year. That would be the most plausible reason for the discrepancy.
Re:original (Score:5, Funny)
its up from 34 last year apparently. So gamers are ageing 3 years for every 1.
That's it. I'm quitting.
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Looking at this, I think they're using the age of the person purchasing the game to determine their "age of gamers" instead of the age of the person actually playing the game. Which is obviously going to give you a broken/skewed image, as grandparents and parents purchase games for anyone 5-18 (and that's ignoring things like Christmas/birthday gifts later down the road).
Link (Score:4, Interesting)
Most links I can find on this topic point to CNET [cnet.com], but this [theesa.com] is the closest thing I can find to the original source. One website high in the google results links to pdf of this supposed study, but the link is dead.
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Oops! I linked Neilsen instead of the ESA document here: http://www.theesa.com/facts/gameplayer.asp [theesa.com]
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They already are (Score:2)
The game studios already are, that's WHY the demographics have changed. The influx of mainstream casual games are the primary reason for the shift. Good games like Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies, OK games like Angry Birds, and particularly dodgy ones like FarmVille, they all exist because the studios have wanted to tap into the casual market which traditional games was not suitably targeting. The Wii is also part
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The influx of mainstream casual games are the primary reason for the shift. Good games like Bejeweled and Plants vs. Zombies, OK games like Angry Birds, and particularly dodgy ones like FarmVille,
Games like that have existed for years. How different is Bejeweled from Columns or Puzzle Bobble? It's yet another colored block matching game. Plants vs Zombies is just tower defense, which has existed in many previous incarnations. Angry Birds was old when it was called Scorched Earth (or Gorillas.bas). Ama
Adjust their demographics how? (Score:2)
The major game publishers already do market research which isn't published, they know and have known the age distribution of gamers. The effect that being older has on gaming has been known for years (preference for mature themes, short play sessions, greater access to credit cards, etc.).
I think (some) baby boomers are the only ones surprised that video games aren't just for kids.
How have the stats been collected? (Score:2)
If they took into account the age people enter as age verification, then their results wouls be horribly wrong.
For most places, in the age verification column, I enter my age as 100, or DOB as 1 jan 1900 (1 jan is defaukt, just change the yr to 1900)
The Atari 2600 and PacMan Generation (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't want to get on a "remember-when" rant, but here I go anyway... I'm 42. I grew up in the late 70s/early 80s. I remember the hand-held electronic games (Galaxy Invader 1000), home video game consoles (first the pong-style games, then Atari VCS, Intellevision, Vectrex!), the first big coin-op games (Space Invaders, Asteroids, Defender, Pac Man), home computers (Atari 400/800, Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum). This was a new and exciting time. Best toys ever. I never really played board games or sports
Let me guess (Score:2)
The average gamer, as identified through PAID software demographics, is 37.
Put otherwise, the average PAYING gamer is 37.
Nope (Score:2)
This suggests that the game market today is most easily accessible and liked by a certain type of people who happens to be 37-41 years old.
My guess?
That's an age where you start to cut back hours on the job and start earning real money.
Buying a bunch of stuff which might be fun for a few hours is worth it then.
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True as well.
Parents buying games for their kids or for the both of them is a valid reason as well.
Also, another reason is that you've grown up for real, meaning, you know that it's not mature to not do the things you like just because they aren't serious.
Who admits to being under 18 except maybe FBI (Score:2)
I realize it's the right thing to do for a person of seasoned age to make jokes about how bad/dumb/noob/etc kids are these days (cause these days are so much worse than back in the good old days) but I really doubt any of them are admitting to being under 18 in any sort of online experience - be it surveys or being asked by various forms.
Meanwhile, a lot of companies will ask for your age (to protect themselves from retarded laws most likely but possibly for marketing reasons also). This includes but not li
"Share This Story" (Score:2)
It says at the bottom under the alleged quote. "Share This Story"
WHAT STORY?
Stupid (Score:2)
does this mean that game studios should be adjusting their demographics accordingly?
Are you actually suggesting that game studios don't do intensive research on market demographics?
Dumbest slashdot "story" ever.
nobody cares (Score:3)
What they care about is mean time between purchase at full retail value for the same product every other short-attention-span twitch spender is buying that week.
Even when I gamed a lot, I only bought the epic titles and beat them to death. My passing from the gaming demographic went unnoticed by the marketroids.
The rule of thumb is that bad money drives out good. When the idiot demographic pays too much for bad content, the companies soon lose interest in making the good content.
I'm sure I just opened myself up for contradiction by epic counter-example. I rest my case.
Read the happiness literature on novelty saturation, then estimate the supply/demand curve intersection involving those who haven't.
Yay ! (Score:2)
That's a good thing isn't it ?
No Way! (Score:2)
Terrible statistics (Score:2)
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The average age is interesting but there's too many people involved for it to tell the average :) person anything. What we need is the median.
Oh really? (Score:2)
I find that hard to believe.
Most games I play online, is FULL of pre-pubescent whinny tards.
Or maybe it's averagely 37 yards old, just acting like they're 12?
More older folks coming to gaming. (Score:2)
Five years ago you couldn't have paid my father (86) to play a game. Now I can't get him to put down Angry Birds when we go out for breakfast, and when he does shut his phone off he talks about the Kinect yoga thing.
Lot of that kind of thing - older folks playing games - changing the average, I'm sure. And I'm glad for it, since by trying to make games that appeal to non-traditional segments there will likely be more interesting games for me to play.
Of Course they are... (Score:2)
It was in the 1970's when games really Pong came out and the industry has grown since, and so has it's most loyal fans.
I'm a middle-aged female, and I love gaming. I'm not great at it, but I still enjoy it none-the-less. And why shouldn't I. Games have actually brought families together in my household. Friendly challenges between neighbors were always a blast.
This study, in my opinion, is only stating the obvious.
Questionable age bracket (Score:2)
Maybe with unemployment being so high, more people are goofing off gaming. Otherwise, I just don't see how the average, employed, 37 year old has more time to play than the 7-18 year old. Unless they count playing Angry Birds while on the shi#ter as "gaming".
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No, it just means that the same number of people playing games are a lot older than the average.
I don't know many kids these days that aren't playing consoles, a few of them seem to also play PC games as well.
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That's the one that'll get the expansion packs "Compassionate Care" and "Death With Dignity" six months after release, but only offers two months of play time. :(
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Here you go. Link [wikimedia.org].
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Don't be too hard on yourself. The 'editor' could have fixed it or dumped it from the queue if it was that bad.
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Really? 37-41 is already older than the average American, period (I assume this study refers to Americans because the ESA is American). This already implies that older people are more likely to game than younger people. I'll grant that you can take infants out of the young end of potential gamers, and then 37-41 might be below the adjusted average American's age. But upping that range to 52-61 is an enormous skew toward older people playing games and younger people not playing them (either that, or an e