Sep 10 2008
Gamers are exceptional people.
I have always felt that my customers at Threshold were exceptional people. For over a decade, I have found them to be intelligent, creative, interesting, and for the most part successful people. I never doubted these conclusions, but I do so love being proved right. 
A research group headed by Dmitri Williams (and sponsored by the National Science Foundation) was given unprecedented, anonymous access to almost every bit of data SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) had about its customers. SOE gave them “full data logs generated and collected by the world Everquest II.” This amounted to many terabytes of data that they hosted and analyzed on supercomuters at NCSA . They have begun releasing some of their findings , and they are impressive though not surprising. Inspired by Raph Koster ’s list of his favorite findings, here is mine:
- The largest concentration of gamers are in their 30s.
- The mean age was 31.16 years old.
- In EQ2, the gender distribution was 80.80% male and 19.20% female.
- Female gamers play slightly more hours per week than male gamers.
- Gamers spend less time watching television than non-gamers: 21.56 hours per week compared to 31.5 per week for the general population. The other 10 hours are spent on games I imagine.
- Gamers come from wealthier backgrounds than average, and are also more educated than the general population.
- Gamers are far less likely to be Christian and much more likely to state they have no religion compared to the general US population.
- Gamers are physically healthier and less overweight than the regular population. Woot!
- More gamers report being diagnosed with depression than non-gamers. Depression was higher in female gamers than in male gamers. Eep!
From my own research, Threshold (and I suspect Primordiax) takes a few of those even further. Threshold is consistently right at about 50% female players, and the average age has consistently increased over the past 12 years. We even have a large contingent of 40+ and 50+ year old players.
So, surprised or not? I cannot wait for them to release more of their findings.
Very interesting stats indeed. The rise in gamer age is only natural of course, those that are in their 30’s and 40’s now grew up on electronic games, arcades and consoles all in their own infancy.
One, coincidence is not correlation, or causation. Two, what are the magnitudes of the differences? Gamers might be less obese, but I suspect it’s not by much, and that it’s due to age rather than anything intrinsic to games.
And 21 hours of TV per week? Holy hannah on a pogo stick. That means some git is out there watching 40 hours to make up for me.
(See? I can play with numbers, too…)
Did I fail to link to the study itself? That’s hideous. I am going to add a link in the main story. Then you can get some of those exact numbers you’re looking for, Tesh.
My entire family are gamers. If it isn’t X-box, it is game boy, or Wii. I have all of the the game dating back to the first pong gaming system.
Woohoo! We is 1337. xD
Good article Cambios! I’ve always been impressed with the caliber of people that play MMOs. I’ve had the privilege to meet some really great people from all walks of life while playing EQ and even WoW.
I think it would be interesting to put the WoW data into those computers and analyze the differences. I suspect at least that the mean age and intelligence would be much lower due to the fact that WoW has been designed to be more accessible to gamers.
I bet you are right, Wolfshead. But unfortunately, Blizzard hasn’t made their data available and I highly doubt they will. I don’t think they’d be terribly proud of how low the average age of their game is, or the exceptionally low percentage of female customers.
I was actually really surprised by the details of the study!! Then again, there was a study done a while back that said gamers made better doctors because in-game skills add to eye-hand coordination. There was also an article on WoWinsider.com that said that it may soon be, and already is at IBM, an acceptable practice to list being a Guild Master as viable real world experience. So, taking all that into account, I suppose I should have been far less surprised than I was.
I’m continually surprised at how many females are actually playing WoW from young teens to older women. Of course my experience is purely anecdotal but being a former GM of a large raiding guild helped give me an insight into the ages and genders of our members as we would interview all prospective candidates before admitting them into the guild.
I think having more diversity in MMOs is a great thing and makes for a more interesting and complex world. I’m very weary of dealing achiever/killer type archetypes who are predominantly male.
I think Blizzard could easily attract more female gamers if they expanded the exploration and socialization and role-playing content of their game. Yes I know that I’m probably stereotyping females as favoring more of that kind of content but there are many women (including my wife) who still aren’t into the achiever (read: kill monsters and take their stuff) mindset of most MMOs.
Given the fact that most of the people that work for Blizzard are males I don’t see this situation changing anytime soon.
Good points on the skills that MMOs can teach people. I talked about being a WoW GM in my first gaming job interview. Being able to work with and manage people is essential these days in any business — especially the creative/entertainment sector.
Really? I am constantly surprised by how FEW females play WoW. From my actual gaming experience, I’d put it at around 2-5% tops.
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On your other points, I totally agree. They could attract more female gamers if they made any effort at all. But they can’t be bothered when it is so much easier to just pump out a new raid dungeon once every 3-4 months.
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I recently read that Blizzard has only spent a *total* of $200 million on WoW development, staff, maintenance, everything since the game opened. That’s just a freakin’ disgrace. I plan to blog on that pathetic little bit of info later. And before you doubt the data, that is from Vivendi/Blizzard’s own admission to investment analysts.