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:

1. The largest concentration of gamers are in their 30s.
2. The mean age was 31.16 years old.
3. In EQ2, the gender distribution was 80.80% male and 19.20% female.
4. Female gamers play slightly more hours per week than male gamers.
5. 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.
6. Gamers come from wealthier backgrounds than average, and are also more educated than the general population.
7. Gamers are far less likely to be Christian and much more likely to state they have no religion compared to the general US population.
8. Gamers are physically healthier and less overweight than the regular population. Woot!
9. 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.

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