Surprising Facts/Statistics About Video Gamers

[Atarifever1]

We all know that men drive the industry. If you ask those ladies playing Candy Crush if they consider themselves "gamers", you'll probably get some funny looks.

How exactly do we "all know this?" Based on what? Your own theory is that female game players are not "real gamers" because they play Candy Crush, but aren't we always whining on here that games like that are leading the industry? By your own logic the games being played and favoured by women, in your own words likely more than men, are currently driving the industry. How, then, do you back up your statement that men drive the industry? The market, sadly, is going mobile. You think more women are on mobile. How is it possible then that men still lead the industry?


This is a purely logic based argument of course. I could argue your ideas on a couple of other grounds. For one, without really knowing the methodology of the study, you dismiss it as being biased in some way. You then make a personal statement and attribute it to "we all" to refute it. That's like talking to a mechanic about your car and having him say "you need a new transmission." Then you say "you're just saying that to make money, we all know it's a warped tire. I know because believeing that makes everything simpler."


Also, you have to rememeber that you, like me and most people on here, are an old man. What do the girls in your grade 9 class play on their PS4s? How many of the girls you talk to at the theatre on Friday night play Minecraft? Oh that's right. You're not young. Maybe you have no idea how things are actually happening in an entire set of demographics. We know from the stat that average "gamer" age fell between the studies. That means that there were likely a lot more young people this time (that being how the average would fall). That being the group you know the least about, perhaps we don't all "know" as much as you think.

[Atarifever1]

From the article:
2014 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry was released by the Entertainment SoftwareAssociation (ESA) in April 2014. The annual research was conducted by Ipsos MediaCT for ESA. The study is the most in-depthand targeted survey of its kind, gathering data from more than 2,200 nationally representative households. Heads ofhouseholds, and the most frequent gamers within each household, were surveyed about their game play habits and attitudes.

Of interest:
2,200 househilds is okay.  Not incredibly great, but depending on how they were selected, that's pretty decent. 

"Heads of households and the most frequent gamers were surveyed."
That is interesting, methodologically.  For one thing, if someone asks a kids Mom if they are a gamer, their parents may give different answers than them.  "Yeah, Susie is a gamer. She's always on her computer at the games." That's a lot different than"Susie is actually a gamer."However, this may work well.  It doesn't matter if you percieve yourself as a gamer if people who know you would define you that way given your playinbg more games than they do.

The other part I want to see more on is "the most frequesnt gamer."  If you go in saying "whoever plays the most ames in this house is the most frequent gamer" then you are defining pretty much every house as having a gamer.  With my parents, that would make my Mom a gamer. 

I think this is interesting.  Because, and here's something hard for many of us to swallow: it may not be wrong.  Gamer, to us, is a treasured term we use to self-identify.  However, the actual distinction, as far as it matters, to the lady who told the local radio station the other day her Mom spent over $1000 on Candy Crush, and me, spending $300 on a Wii U, is pretty strained. How, exactly, is a CandyCrush player not a gamer?  Candy Crush is a game.  The game makes lots of money.  The game is played.  If someone spends an hour a day with a puzzle game and occasionally gives the developer money, why aren't they a gamer?  Because they don't identify that way? Not every cinephile identifies that way either, but if you see every movie that comes out, that's still what you are.

Anyway, I'm going to try to find some of their actual data simewhere.  For what it's worth, I don't like some things about what I am seeing.  I am NOT seeing the error bars or any indication of reliabilty.  This makes many of their silly cartoon pcitures even less meaningful than they already are.  I'm hoping I can find the original data and more information on methodology somewhere. 

In defense of you people who are sceptical, I will say this: A study that doesn't list its methodology or reliability might as well not publish its results.

[scotland171]

If you think I'm sensitive, then you need to check out the Ban Bossy campaign. Those people are freaking nutjobs.

That is a fallacy of relative privation.

Seen often when someone is caught doing something bad, and justify it by giving an example of something much worse. Sure officer I ran that stop sign, but don't you have some drunk drivers to go catch? This mayor has broken some rules, but she's still not as bad as the previous mayor.

This compounds what was already done. The survey reported that gamers were almost as likey to be female as male. When that statement was challenged, the straw man argument that the mere existence of female gamers exist was attacked when that was never the point. Its only the relative proportion and the character of their gaming habit that is at issue.

If you are going to argue statistics, understanding both statistics and arguments is helpful.

[scotland171]

@Atarifever - Nice to have you back from your holiday from the site.  You were missed.

You made a number of good points.  My major concern is that the survey is commissioned by a lobbying group formed by hardware and software companies to combat negative images about video games and gamers in the wake of Doom, Mortal Kombat, Night Trap and other issues.  They therefore would have a reason to want to sanitize the image of a 'gamer' by including as many people as possible.  The snpped about methodology you posted is inadequate to offset concerns that the results are slanted.  Not untrue mind you; I am not saying anyone is lying.  I am saying it is appropriate to suspect they have used a definition of gamer that suits their purpose to put video gaming in the best light possible. 

Of primary concern then is how they defined 'gamer'.  Back in 1980 in the US there was a debate on 'homelessness', something of a new political football.  Lobbying groups had a broad (liberal) definition of being homeless, and the new presidential administration had a tight (conservative) definition.  The result was a debate over whether there were 300,000 or 3,000,000 homeless in America -- based in part on how homeless was defined.  That debate continues to this day, not just on homelessness (with different definitions used by different parts of the US federal gov't in fact), but what it means to be unemployed, or in poverty, or whatever. 

There are lot of activities many people do occasionally or casually.  I ride a bicycle occasionally, but that does not make me a cyclist, or does it?  If a group was advocating for more bike lanes, they might include me as a cyclist.  If another group was advocating against more bike lanes, they likely would not include me as a cyclist.  I occasionally go for hikes, but am I then a hiker? 

Statistics is a tricky business.  Google "Dewey Defeats Truman" of 1948 in the United States, or predictions about the early races in the 2008 Democratic Primary race in the US, especially New Hampshire.  In these cases the people doing the polling had no obvious bias to pick one candidate over the other, and 2008 is pretty darn recent, yet things went awry.  Given that even with the best of intentions and
no obvious bias, and given how easy it is to manipulate respondents in a variety of ways, again, is appropriate to ask more questions and demand more information before giving this study any credence. You expressed a similar statement yourself.

You ended the post with a determination to find more information.  Good luck, and please share with us what you find out.

[VideoGameCritic]

Atarifever -

I think you misinterpreted me.  I was not making a derogatory statement about women.  Playing games is a trivial pursuit.  Most women have better things to do with their time.  Men and women are inherently different.

When I was young the girls my age were very much into video games.  I'm talking about my sister, my girlfriend, and all their friends.  Many had consoles of their own.

Once they got married and/or had kids, the interest in video games went away almost completely (save for the time-wasting, extraneous mobile game).  

Most of my guy friends on the other hand have maintained some level of interest in video games.  And those who still have an interest can afford to spend some money on that stuff.

I don't think my observations are an extreme case.

VGC

[Atarifever1]

I think you misinterpreted me.  I was not making a derogatory statement about women.  Playing games is a trivial pursuit.  Most women have better things to do with their time.  Men and women are inherently different. When I was young the girls my age were very much into video games.  I'm talking about my sister, my girlfriend, and all their friends.  Many had consoles of their own. Once they got married and/or had kids, the interest in video games went away almost completely (save for the time-wasting, extraneous mobile game).  Most of my guy friends on the other hand have maintained some level of interest in video games.  And those who still have an interest can afford to spend some money on that stuff. I don't think my observations are an extreme case. - VGC

I didn't think you were being derogatory.  I don't think anything deragatory has been said here by anyone in this conversation. 

I'm just wondering if your observations might not jive with current reality.  Many, many, many young women play Minecraft.  Does this make them gamers?  Maybe.  If a "gamer" plays Minecraft and a non-traditional gamer begins gaming to play Minecraft, I don't think there's a way to differentiate, as we don't know what future behaviour will follow.  A girl playing Minecraft right now is as much a gamer as me, because I don't know she is going to stop playing games after this, so there's no way to say she isn't a gamer.  MAybe it's her first game, but there's no way to know if it will be her last one. 


I don't want to do dueling antecdotes, but I have begun to rethink who counts as a gamer because of people I know in real life.  I'm not arguing they are part of a trend (I don't have the data).  However, they are making me question my own definitions.

  One recently that has me thinking is the woman who does home therapy for my autisitic son.  She has said a bunch of stuff over the last couple years that clearly mark her as outside of standard definitions of "gamer."  For example, the other day me and my wife were having a silly discussion about Animal Crossing while I was playing it and she said "so, did you buy that on the app store?"  Yes.  I bought a Nintendo 3DS game, on the 3DS I am playing right now, on Apple's app store.  She also plays lots of Farmville and games like it and doesn't really see the difference between those and the full games her son plays.  However, the other day she was playing a Hidden Object game on her tablet.  I asked about it (as it was NOT running through Facebook).  She logged out of it and showed me where she bought it.  The Bigfish Games app!  She had A TON of them.  Like tons and tons.  Entire series of them.  All bought for real money, from an online store front, with no microtransactions.  Just full digital game downloads.  Piles of them.

That got me thinking.  What was the difference between her spending piles of money on Bigfish Games for complete, full games, and me downloading a game on Steam?  She had series, so she was playing through games and their sequels.  She had a publisher of choice.  She knew the name of the company she was buying from (she said she had given them "way too much money" but in a good way).  She downloaded and installed a digital storefront just for purposes of actually purchasing entire games.  And her collection of digital downloads is probably larger than my Steam Library.  And she isn't even waiting for sales, but is just flat out buying the games at asking price. 

What then is the distinction that makes me a gamer and not her?  Genre?  Says who?  Hidden Object games aren't that different than a classic PC Adventure game.  Not reading about games?  Well then are people who only play COD on a $300 machine, purchase all the season passes, put clans together, and spend 20 hours a week in the game not gamers because they don't follow gaming press in general?

I think I'm starting to question the definition of gamer in a lot of ways, so I don't find these results particularly hard to believe.

[Atarifever1]

Statistics is a tricky business.  Google "Dewey Defeats Truman" of 1948 in the United States, or predictions about the early races in the 2008 Democratic Primary race in the US, especially New Hampshire.  In these cases the people doing the polling had no obvious bias to pick one candidate over the other, and 2008 is pretty darn recent, yet things went awry.  Given that even with the best of intentions and no obvious bias, and given how easy it is to manipulate respondents in a variety of ways, again, is appropriate to ask more questions and demand more information before giving this study any credence. You expressed a similar statement yourself. You ended the post with a determination to find more information.  Good luck, and please share with us what you find out.

Nice to be back. 


Know what you learn in a Masters of Social Psychology?  A lot of stats.  How to read them correctly and how to do them well. How to find the lies in stats.  Oh.  And how to tell lies with them (inadvertantly).  I can make a pile of data say anything I want, all the time.  Couple this with my natural ability to make a reasonable hypothesis out of any two pieces of information, regardless of relationship, and I would make a dangerous policy advisor. It also makes me annoying to my family on Facebook when I have to explain all the lies they are reposting about cures for dseases and causes of autism etc. that come from nutjobs. 

I definitely see the issue with the possible bias and was not really aware that was who this was or what their history was.  As well, the results are clearly "for media" release, with the simple, easy, kind of mindless presentation.  I am finding this a little suspect, but then, as I have said, I'm not sure yet if I disagree with their new definition of gamer.  I'm not, in fact, sure that convincing peopel that tehy are mostly ALL gamers isn't worthwhile, and a reflection of current reality. 

I'll let you guys know if I can find anything else. 

[Atarifever1]

Some interesting stats from stats Canada (a Government Statistics agency) from 2010.  These results look somewhat different, for both men and women. 

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidie ... 2b-eng.htm

Video game use also increased. The proportion of people reporting playing video games on any given day doubled from 3% in 1998 to 6% in 2010. Canadians who played video games increased the amount of daily time they spent on this activity from 1 hour 48 minutes in 1998 to 2 hours 20 minutes in 2010.

A very, very interesting article (also statscan) I'll be reading in depth later for fun.  It shows how problematic asking parents and the household's "primary gamer" about their behaviurs can be:

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2 ... 62-eng.pdf

The agreement (kappa score) betweenchildren and their parents about theextent of the children’s participationin organized sports was 0.41 (Table1), which is considered fair.  17 Thekappa score for leisure sports was 0.11,which is considered low. The scoresfor television viewing and computeruse/video games were 0.19 (low) and0.23 (fair), respectively.

Now, I can't find the ESA's original data anywhere (all links go back to that PDF), but if I'm nice, I'll say asking the parents and "primary gamer" was a response to this problem.  However, I can't be sure at all, and it is entirely possible they averaged the time, went with the higher number, went with the lowest number, or always assumed (wrongly) that the "primary gamer" was more accurate reporting their own behaviour when it was a child than were their parents.   



http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-003-x/2 ... 25-eng.htm

Some stuff about TV viewership and computer use that is out of date, but still interesting in the gender breakdown.  I'm looking for newer stuff there though, as I would bet computer use is way, way, way up, and is likely higher in women than men now. 

[Gentlegamer1]

This graphic roughly dovetails with my personal experience with females and video games

 

[Atarifever1]

This graphic roughly dovetails with my personal experience with females and video games

And I don't mean this in the "you've offended me and I feel bad for you" way, but I feel bad for you. My wife got a T-shirt that said "I love nerds" 1hen we were in University together and a Yoshi one. My sister always gamed with me as a kid (we would marathon Mario 3 all day some weekends). If the girls you know don't like games, or if they're high maintenance, you need to find new girls.