BBC Dissects Gamers

The BBC has a feature up entitled State of Play: Snapshot of UK gamers. It is a concise look at the demographic makeup of gamers in the UK, though one would assume the statistics would come out at least fairly similar in countries such as the United States. The study is further proof that gaming is fast becoming a pasttime that is simply taken for granted rather than being some kind of niche interest. However, it is important to note that the survey has rather broad definitions for "gamers." The survey claims that a rather high 59% of citizens age 6-65 are gamers, but the survey defined a gamer as somebody who has played video games on any platform within the last six months. Furthermore, "puzzle/quiz" games are by far the most played genre, with 63% of gamers enjoying them. "Action adventure," "racing," and "simulations" follow with 43%, 40%, and 39% respectively. "Classic" takes 37%. Despite their huge impact recently, MMOs grab only 8% of the market. Age turned out to be one of the most telling factor in various statistics. For example, a staggering 100% of respondents age 6-10 play games (which may have been rounded from 99.something% given that all the numbers are integers), and that number steadily declines by age until a sharp drop to 18% in the 51-65 age group. Statistics of male and female gamers were somewhat organized according to age as well. The male:female gamer ratio is closest among young gamers and old gamers--52:48 for both the 5-10 and 51-65 groups--and widest among the ages right in the middle--56:44 for ages 16-35. Considering females are known to have much greater participation in puzzle and online casual games (it's unfortunate the study didn't cross reference gender with more attributes) it is tough to tell what the ratios would look like for console and hardcore PC gaming, but they'd probably be quite different. However, considering it's unlikely that 6 year olds of either genre would enjoy Sudoku, it seems like a reasonable assumption that the youngest gamers are probably playing pretty similar games at pretty much the same rate of participation, but females lose interest in the hobby over time. There's a bit of a hint in that while 45.3% of male gamers report themselves as "heavy" players, only 36.2% of females did so. These numbers still seem a bit odd, though, because 81.5% of gamers overall indicated they were heavy players. The survey notes that "heavy gamers tend to play more than one device," but does not give hard qualifications. There are some more interesting statistics there, some less surprising than others--ages 6-10 and 25-65 play in the lounge, 11-24 in the bedroom--but overall an interesting cross section that just goes to show how prevalent gaming is becoming. Of course, given the definition on which the survey operates, one suspects that Hilary Clinton and Joe Lieberman might be included in a US version, as long as they've loaded up a game of Solitaire since June.