05 Facts About Gaming In 2015 That’ll Blow Your Mind
Saturday, September 12, 2015How old is the average gamer? Do women play more than men? Just how long do we tend to play for?
Don’t you love polls, facts and stats? No? Oh, come on, what if I told you 63% of people regularly take place in polls, two in five of you have already considered leaving this article and pursuing something else, and there’s a 99% chance you’ll finish this sentence?
See? Gives everything a nice bit of weight, doesn’t it? Some purpose in this topsy-turvy world, and when it comes to gaming, shines a light into our respective habits, which things we all have in common, buyer habits, subtle influencing factors and more. It’s how we find out exactly why the industry is happy to produce sequels until the last brain cell dies off, why DLC packs cost what they do, what the average age of a gamer is, and so on.
Thanks to the folks over at ESA (the Entertainment Software Association), they’ve put out their latest roundup of what everyone’s playing, surveying 4000 American homes to find out what the biggest titles and genres were, what our purchasing habits can tell us about what’s coming in the future, what age brackets hoover up the most content – all the good stuff.
So, not to get all Big Brother on you, but everything these days is tracked and monitored – although the upside is we get to put together awesome little articles like this. We’re more alike than you think, fellow gamer, and here are 15 reasons why.
Note: Facts in the opening sentence may be 100% inaccurate.
05. The Average Age Of A Gamer Is 35
Scratch gender for a second, as the people buying the most games and spending the most time cumulatively plugging away at their respective titles are the 18-35 age bracket – equalling out at an overall average gamer age of 35.
35 year-olds tend to have the most disposable income thanks to being in stable jobs, and can therefore be more dependable consumers than the pocket money-stockpiling teens of the land. To get the gender cap back on for a second, the average age of a female gamer is actually 43, whereas males are still 35. You’d therefore expect the average to be 39, but thanks to there being 56% of males overall, it offsets it back to 35.
Try not to think about it too much, just know that the major age demographic gaming is aiming at is no longer the early 20s market, but the deeper pockets of the family man. Kinda explains segmented DLC, Season Passes and micro-transactions, doesn’t it?
04. 6.5 Hours Is An Average Online Multiplayer Session
Players of DOTA and Destiny are coughing into their seventh cup of coffee at that statement. “6.5?! That’s an evening at best!” they’ll roar, being the latter in particular has an average player’s game-time around 250 hours (yes, really).
Bear in mind we’re talking all ages here, so students and school-goers who have multiple days off alongside extended afternoons do factor in, but think of the wider populace and all the jobs and lifestyles that incorporates. An hour a night across the week perhaps? A huge session on a weekend before your partner comes home, or before life gets in the way again?
Whatever the case, have a think yourself on how much time you put into dedicated online modes – you’ll most likely fall into a couple hour margin above or below this figure.
03. We Spend Less Time Watching TV And Movies Than Ever Before
Y’know the feeling you’re becoming increasingly disillusioned with TV? You’re not the only one.
The ESA’s study points to measuring data across the last three years, coming back with stats that reinforce this cultural shift. Apparently, if you’d say you play more games today than you did three years ago, collectively that means 39% of us are watching less TV, 40% are saying no to the cinema, and 47% are favouring gaming over watching movies at home.
However, just to frazzle your mind a bit…
02. 47% Of You Think Games Are Value For Money
Those people clearly didn’t play Assassin’s Creed: Unity, did they?
I jest (although that was a smouldering wreck of a game, it really was), but this is a pretty neat comparative piece of research. We’re forever comparing the cinematic qualities of game cutscenes to cinema, and the narrative progression or exposition of something to books, so it’s worth noting that despite 47% of frequently-purchasing gamers being happy with their products, only 28% could say the same about DVDs they buy, 14% for what they pay for in the cinema, and 12% for any paid-for music.
They’re not great stats to be honest, but you have to remember this survey was carried out across 2014; the year where we collectively gave Game of the Year to Shadow of Mordor, a solid title in its own regard, but something that itself was cobbled together from the remnants of a good five other games.
Lastly, the average buyer age for games is 37, so without delving into the difference between purchasing and playing yourself, versus as a gift for your child and noting their satisfaction made you tick the ‘Yes’ box, you can still take these negative numbers with a pinch of salt.
01. 63% Of Parents Say Video Games Are A Positive Influence
We’ve come a long way since the outraged 90s landscape where Marilyn Manson and Mortal Kombat seemed to join hand-in-hand, leading the ‘impressionable youth’ into the Gates of Hell, as now not only do 94% of parents say they actively take note of what their children are playing, but 85% think champion it as “fun for the family”.
Sadly, only 54% say they enjoy the game as much as their kid does (but who above 10 loses their mind over Disney Infinity as much as a child could?
On second thought, don’t answer that, but 75% get involved because they’re asked, another 75% note it’s a great way to bond, and 58% are actually using it to monitor what’s being played, the sneaky Solid Snake wannabes
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