ESA Releases Surprising Poll Results
- Scribbled on July 18th, 2008 by Jonathon Howard
- Filed in E3, Industry News, Polls
That is just the first beat of surprising new that’s come out of the Entertainment Software Association’s annual survey of consumer demographics and usage behaviors, others are:
- Gamer’s average age has crept up to 35.
- One out of four gamers is over age 50
- Woman, 18 years of age or older, make up 33% of the gaming population
- Boys, 17 years or younger, make up only 18%
So maybe now some of the things you’ve been seeing at E3 begin to make sense? Microsoft’s push to make live more family and female friendly, several developers and publishers (EA, Eidos, etc.) new casual and dedicated female brands, Nintendo’s complete disregard for their “hard-core” audience. Yeah, all that makes sense when there are more woman and family men playing than there are angry, smelly, prepubescent teens…This is a big shift for the industry and it’ll be interesting to watch how games evolve as their audience does.
Other interesting facts to come out of the study have to do with parents; involvement in their children’s gaming:
- 94% of parents are present when games are purchased or rented.
- 88% of parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play.
- 63% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives.
Feel free to use those statistics when some ignorant blow hard (like this guy or politicians grasping for a red herring) tries to tell you that games are dangerous to children and a threat to “our” way of life, then punch them in the face! Just kidding.
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