4 ms·

The average age of gamers is 37? I find that a bit incredible.

by panacea 15y ago

cstuder 15y ago
Wikipedia[1] links to several industry studies, most of which place the average age of gamers between 30 and 40. Public perception is certainly different. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game#Social_aspects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game#Social_aspects
josefresco 15y ago
37 is not inconceivable if you factor in the massively popular RPG games like WoW. A genre I believe that is dominated by non-conventional gamers like older women.
- corin_ 15y ago
  Actually no, WoW is certainly one of the games that a lot of older people play, in my view that's because if you get addicted to a specific game (which for games like this does genuinely happen), you are less likely to stop and think "what do other people think of me playing this". But certainly WoW is dominated byy younger plays in their teens and 20s. The real thing that skews these stats is that "gaming" includes angry birds, it includes facebook games, it includes... etc. etc. Those are the games that skew the stats. People actually in the industry see past it, when marketing WoW, or Call of Duty, or whatever latest big title, the focus is generally described as 18-30 (or sometimes 18-25), with the assumption that despite not saying it, naturally you also want to attract the under 18 market as well. It's just the media who get fooled by the figures into thinking gaming is for the old, now. Edit: that's not to say that it isn't going to go up (and has already begun), because obviously as the generations move up, they carry with them acceptance for gaming. But it hasn't yet happened nearly as much, for what we think of as big video games at least, as numbers suggest.
  - onemoreact 15y ago
    WoW has an interesting split. Younger gamers tend to spend more time in game so you see more of them. But, there are a lot of older gamers that play less than 20 hours a week and the average age is fairly high. Note: I am 100+ person guild where more people are over 50 than under 20. We raid 2 nights a week and are middle of the road when it comes to progression aka top 10,000 ;o guild world wide. http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/us/malygos/Wasted+Epics http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/us/malygos/Wasted+Epics
  - ajross 15y ago
    When you say "WoW is dominated" you're probably talking about the median age of a player online. That's a different metric than the median age of all players. Young folks have more time to spend on leisure, and routinely spend 8+ hours at a session. Older people with careers might play much less, but they still play. And more to the point: as game billing is generally per-seat or per-month, it's these older players that actually dominate the revenue.
    - corin_ 15y ago
      I haven't done research, but my comments above come based on what I hear from working with companies such as Activision Blizzard, Codemasters etc.
jentulman 15y ago
I don't think that is so surprising given the marked rise in gaming promoted to people 30+ over the last decade. Nintendo in particular have done an brilliant job of taking their platforms into older markets. My parent's, in their sixties, both have DS's, share a Wii and play many desktop games (due to my influence, of which I'm very proud). People in to 30-50 age range have also grown up with the growth of the leisure computing industry, they may well have taken up gaming when the were the correct age (the media expects you to be) to start playing, and never put it down. Also with the growing size of the 'the old' in relation to 'the young' the 30+ age range is probably (guessing) a bigger and growing market share, bring the average up.
BigZaphod 15y ago
The median age in the US is 36.5 according to this: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2009_5YR_G00_S0101&-ds_name=ACS_2009_5YR_G00_ http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_... I have a terrible grasp of things like statistics so I'll avoid making any kind of leap of logic here and suggest this means anything, but I just thought it was an interesting coincidence if anything.

The average age of gamers is 37? I find that a bit incredible.

by panacea 15y ago

The average age of gamers is 37? I find that a bit incredible.

Wikipedia[1] links to several industry studies, most of which place the average age of gamers between 30 and 40. Public perception is certainly different. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game#Social_aspects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game#Social_aspects

josefresco 15y ago

37 is not inconceivable if you factor in the massively popular RPG games like WoW. A genre I believe that is dominated by non-conventional gamers like older women.

corin_ 15y ago
Actually no, WoW is certainly one of the games that a lot of older people play, in my view that's because if you get addicted to a specific game (which for games like this does genuinely happen), you are less likely to stop and think "what do other people think of me playing this". But certainly WoW is dominated byy younger plays in their teens and 20s. The real thing that skews these stats is that "gaming" includes angry birds, it includes facebook games, it includes... etc. etc. Those are the games that skew the stats. People actually in the industry see past it, when marketing WoW, or Call of Duty, or whatever latest big title, the focus is generally described as 18-30 (or sometimes 18-25), with the assumption that despite not saying it, naturally you also want to attract the under 18 market as well. It's just the media who get fooled by the figures into thinking gaming is for the old, now. Edit: that's not to say that it isn't going to go up (and has already begun), because obviously as the generations move up, they carry with them acceptance for gaming. But it hasn't yet happened nearly as much, for what we think of as big video games at least, as numbers suggest.
- onemoreact 15y ago
  WoW has an interesting split. Younger gamers tend to spend more time in game so you see more of them. But, there are a lot of older gamers that play less than 20 hours a week and the average age is fairly high. Note: I am 100+ person guild where more people are over 50 than under 20. We raid 2 nights a week and are middle of the road when it comes to progression aka top 10,000 ;o guild world wide. http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/us/malygos/Wasted+Epics http://www.wowprogress.com/guild/us/malygos/Wasted+Epics
- ajross 15y ago
  When you say "WoW is dominated" you're probably talking about the median age of a player online. That's a different metric than the median age of all players. Young folks have more time to spend on leisure, and routinely spend 8+ hours at a session. Older people with careers might play much less, but they still play. And more to the point: as game billing is generally per-seat or per-month, it's these older players that actually dominate the revenue.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    I haven't done research, but my comments above come based on what I hear from working with companies such as Activision Blizzard, Codemasters etc.

jentulman 15y ago

I don't think that is so surprising given the marked rise in gaming promoted to people 30+ over the last decade. Nintendo in particular have done an brilliant job of taking their platforms into older markets. My parent's, in their sixties, both have DS's, share a Wii and play many desktop games (due to my influence, of which I'm very proud). People in to 30-50 age range have also grown up with the growth of the leisure computing industry, they may well have taken up gaming when the were the correct age (the media expects you to be) to start playing, and never put it down. Also with the growing size of the 'the old' in relation to 'the young' the 30+ age range is probably (guessing) a bigger and growing market share, bring the average up.

BigZaphod 15y ago

The median age in the US is 36.5 according to this: http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2009_5YR_G00_S0101&-ds_name=ACS_2009_5YR_G00_ http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/STTable?_bm=y&-geo_... I have a terrible grasp of things like statistics so I'll avoid making any kind of leap of logic here and suggest this means anything, but I just thought it was an interesting coincidence if anything.