ESA Survey Finds Nearly Half of All U.S. Gamers Are Female

[Johnson McGee]

I wish they would have a higher age category distinction. It's pretty much a given that the 50+ age gaming bracket will be tiny but to be able to point at it and say 'these people don't get games, why do we keep listening to them about it (in congress)' would be nice.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

Okay, lots of what I'd expect in terms of "including mobile gaming shouldn't count" and "what casual gamers?" and such.

Here's from the Source of the Article - what the article we have here was written about.

Adult gamers have been playing for an average of 16 years, with adult men averaging 18 years and adult women averaging 13 years (p. 3)

I'm trying to think to what degree our pure Gaming with a capital G community was "polluted" by "casual" and "mobile" games 10 + years ago. I'm pretty sure it wasn't all that pervasive just yet, and 13 year history playing on average means a good deal of those women answering were above 15 years to bring the average UP to 13 years if a bunch of those answering were saying things like 4 years and 5 years as casual and mobile games have boomed. Think about it.

47% of gamers play social games

I would have liked it if they had defined what "social games" are - they could be "social media games" shortened, or they could be multiple player games or games you play with friends or online interaction with others games - I have no idea. No gender separation on that either, so that makes it somewhat useless.

Then again - it's not a gender study at all. Gender demographics are included in the first few pages, but the overall report is a general statistics survey - how many parent's play with kids, how many know about ESRB, how many agree with ESRB, top grossing games for the period, console vs. PC popularity by genre, etc.

Pulling statistics off these things and then either parading them around trying to convince people they are some end-all assessment of their pet situation is asinine. For the same reason doing that same thing in any other field for the same reason is asinine: that's just not how statistics from generalized and purposefully non-specificly parsed surveys are meant to be useful.

Now, I know there is a sizable group of women who play main stream, previously established definition of the word "gamer" endorsed video games all the time and it's as much a thing for them as it is for the perceived hordes of men who self-identify as "gamer" in the same spirit. I know there's another - much larger, in my estimation from personal observation - group of women who play casual and social media games or even "old" games online in digital format (Solitaire, Poker, Monopoly, Risk, etc.) who don't have any experience with the more "traditional" experiences and habits of being a "gamer," but claim the title anyway for expediency of description or it's just a handy category to borrow.

What I don't like about this is that while I should be overjoyed that more people are having more fun and playing a little in their lives instead of working and staring at the television dominating their daily activity pattern? I have to dislike them existing, because apparently there mere existence is enough to discredit the idea that women are/can be/have always been "gamers" in the "traditional" (or, if you prefer "exclusionary") sense. Somehow there's this idea that I am thrilled to have these casual/socials around. Somehow it's assumed that they bolster my cause of getting recognized simply as someone who plays games and wants to enjoy them. They don't - as you can read here they do quite the opposite. Sure, I like that my fiancé's mom can get into picture-find fun after work and be happy about a game, but I know she's watering down my reputation as a gamer while she's doing it - something I've had to fight for from every guy who plays video games I've ever met in life. So, yeah - it's a mixed bag for some of us, y'know. We're not a hive-mind on any topic.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Oh yay these useless stats again.

Wish they would weight them so they'd give you some idea of the reality of the market. Time played and money spent people! Not some catchall meaning.

 

[BanicRhys]

So basically, nearly half of all people (give or take a few babies and oldies) in the US are female? Because when your definition of gamer is that broad, you're not going to find many people that don't game in some form (aside from the ones too old/young to understand the device).

My Mother is a hardcore gamer, she plays some serious Spider Solitaire on the Windows PC I installed for her. You bet your ass that she gets at least 6 hours playtime down a week!

Oh mylanta, yours too? All mine ever does on her iPad is play that damn game.

I tried to get her into something a bit more hardcore like Plants vs Zombies and Angry Birds but she quickly went back to that bloody Solitaire.

 

[baconmaster]

I have serious doubts about this in particular: 'a whopping 95 percent (of parents) said they "pay attention to the content of the games their children play."'

I mean, I'm sure 95% SAY they do. but saying is not doing

 

[Eri]

What I want to know is are male teenagers just a smaller demographic than we've been led to believe or are they leaving gaming for something else (weed)?

The numbers are shown in a way that are incredibly misleading. This study looks into people who play games. All games. From the Triple A blockbusters on consoles to solitaire on a PC, from Handheld consoles to smartphone aps.

Teens, especially teenaged males, are not leaving gaming, in fact if you look at the data, given the definition of what a gamer is, 39-45% of gamers have been women since at least 2002.

This is simply intentionally bad data gathering being used to make a false image of gaming, and is harmful in the long run since it gives smaller indie devs who don't know any better an image of a market which isn't there.

So much this. People who occasionally play Angry Birds are not gamers. They wouldn't even label themselves as such. Misleading data is misleading.

 

[llubtoille]

It seems rather a pointless survey if you include essentially everyone that owns a smartphone.

 

[Astoria]

One thing to keep in mind is that these numbers probably have a lot to do with casual/mobile gaming. I think it would be interesting to see what the numbers look like if you filter out all the respondents who just play peggle/angry birds/cut the rope/ ect.

Yeah this is my thoughts. You play 5 levels of Candy Crush now and you're a gamer apparently. I can vaguely remember reading some similar survey and when they broke it down by genre over 50% of 'gamers' were playing just mobile games or things like solitaire. Without the casual/mobile gamers having input I think you'd see males are still pretty dominate, maybe not as much as they once were but still dominate. As for the average age though that's probably not too high because I know of a lot of adults who are still pretty hardcore gamers.

 

[VVThoughtBox]

This is completely meaningless if we don't know what their definition of a "gamer" is.
I consider mobile gaming a completely different universe compared to the call of duties on consoles and I don't believe that it's a 50/50 spread in whatever folks call "hardcore games" these days since those and their communities have that slight tendency of making people of the female persuasion uncomfortable.

So unless you further elaborate, the data you chose to present to us is unclear at best and misleading at worst.

A gamer is someone who purchases and plays video games as a hobby. It doesn't matter what genre of games you like or prefer, if you have enough money to buy a system and a couple of games, then you are a gamer. The definition is that simple and easy to understand. Some People just make the definition of the word gamer difficult to understand because they have a habit of segregating themselves and taking pride in only liking one genre over the other.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

[HEADING=1]Shocking new statistics reveal that roughly half of all smartphone owners are female[/HEADING]


For pointless and misleading statistics full of cherry-picking and bias, look no further than ESA gaming statistics.

Really, wasn't the first time enough? Or did they only release another one to catch the attention of news sites like Escapist?

On a positive note, it's good to see the number of people in this thread who had already wised-up about ESA. Thank heavens most of us are smart enough to know these statistics are or no value to anybody and utterly meaningless.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

A gamer is someone who purchases and plays video games as a hobby. It doesn't matter what genre of games you like or prefer, if you have enough money to buy a system and a couple of games, then you are a gamer. The definition is that simple and easy to understand. Some People just make the definition of the word gamer difficult to understand because they have a habit of segregating themselves and taking pride in only liking one genre over the other.

Well, how are you going to define playing as a hobby as opposed to not as a hobby? Is playing a game while waiting for transport and only then sufficient? Is playing only free games sufficient? Is playing only on someone else's console sufficient?

I don't care who wants to call themselves a gamer because it means nothing. We're already going the spectrum from MMO subscribers and professional RTS players to people who play with the family on a Wii at family dinners or play Farmville in office breaks, two very different markets and gaming habits, and it doesn't do anyone any favours, least of all publishers trying to get an accurate picture of who they're targeting, that we're lumping all of those in together. Which is why there needs to be a further distinction. It's not about elitism or excluding people or any of that crap, it's about making meaningful distinctions between markets so publishers don't think Fallout fans would be delighted to see more microtransactions or other similarly erroneous conclusions (and as far as I know, that's how stupid publishers can be and have been). But since no-one can say 'casual' or 'hardcore' without a ridiculous train of connotations we don't have terms for the two broad groups and no real way for a study to distiguish them.

 

[VVThoughtBox]

I'm starting to wonder if gaming journalists are being sexist and are just blaming all their problems on the industry to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.

 

[Chicago Ted]

And people are already on the "they don't play the games I do so they don't count as gamers" bandwagon, also disparaging mobile games as "not real games", even though just on page 2 of the PDF it says that the majority of households have at least one dedicated gaming device, and that 68% of households that have a dedicated gaming device have a console.

Kindof depressing to see that the sales of the RPG, strategy, and adventure genres on consoles combined don't equal the sales of shooters on consoles, but all three of those eclipse shooters on computers. Interesting.

I think most interesting is the last fact, which now shows that the majority of all game sales are now digital. I'm really surprised that I haven't seen anybody post about that yet.

I don't really think people are saying that mobile game and social games count, just that the net is cast very wide when you include those, and then post it on a more classic gaming site, such as the Escapist.

I had a fairly long winded post, going into more details about this as I read through the survey, but found one critical statistic in it that I really think helps draw the line between what this survey considers a gamer, and what more dedicated gaming communities consider a gamer. On Page 4, it states that "44% of game players state that computer and video games give them the most value for their money, compared with DVDs, music, or going out to the movies". That right there I believe is the largest distinction between what this survey considers as a gamer, and what communities such as the Escapist and other sites and the like might consider a gamer. In my mind, this survey just sets the net too large for what it considers gamers. I mean, almost everyone in the States reads, whether it be a restaurant menu, cooking instructions, and other such things of that nature, but I wouldn't consider those people readers when compared to those who read a novel a week or something like that.

And as for the point of most game sales being digital, I honestly don't find it all that shocking. The survey states that "Digital format sales include subscriptions, digital full games, digital add-on content, mobile apps and social network gaming", which when related back to an earlier statement "Casual/social game play on mobile devices and online has increased significantly over the past year. Among most frequent gamers, social games are now the most popular genre, increasing in popularity by 55% from 2012 to 2013", which makes sense for the increase in digital growth. Frankly, I'm somewhat surprised that the data doesn't go the other way when including smartphones and the like.

What am I most surprised by though? The fact that Skyrim is the 13th most sold computer game of 2013, even though it was released in late 2011. I guess that had to do with the Legendary Edition release of it though, but it still surprised me.

 

[Charli]

This just in, gamer Dads have had the necessary allotment of time to produce adult gamer daughters. Demographic of female gaming has widened considerably in that time.

This whole 'mans club' mindset is a really old relic of the past at this point in time. Clung to by people rapidly approaching their middle age and beyond. I'm hopeful for the future since I've noticed young teens in my area being far more inclusive of their female peers when discussing gaming related topics and upcoming releases (observed outside school waiting to pick up my brother)

The casual gaming market has some part in this but I don't think it's as large as you think it is.

I know way too many female friends who at least have a DS, who have dabbled in more serious MMO's. And it sure isn't all bejeweled clones or cutesy farmville games.

Alot of them...Have a steam account. If only because the Sims and a handful of other games like South Park or Marvel Heroes have caught their eye.

Even elderly women who've in their retirement have taken it upon themselves to play their grandkids video games while bored and have taken to them quite amazingly.

 

[VVThoughtBox]

A gamer is someone who purchases and plays video games as a hobby. It doesn't matter what genre of games you like or prefer, if you have enough money to buy a system and a couple of games, then you are a gamer. The definition is that simple and easy to understand. Some People just make the definition of the word gamer difficult to understand because they have a habit of segregating themselves and taking pride in only liking one genre over the other.

Well, how are you going to define playing as a hobby as opposed to not as a hobby? Is playing a game while waiting for transport and only then sufficient? Is playing only free games sufficient? Is playing only on someone else's console sufficient?

I don't care who wants to call themselves a gamer because it means nothing. We're already going the spectrum from MMO subscribers and professional RTS players to people who play with the family on a Wii at family dinners or play Farmville in office breaks, two very different markets and gaming habits, and it doesn't do anyone any favours, least of all publishers trying to get an accurate picture of who they're targeting, that we're lumping all of those in together. Which is why there needs to be a further distinction. It's not about elitism or excluding people or any of that crap, it's about making meaningful distinctions between markets so publishers don't think Fallout fans would be delighted to see more microtransactions or other similarly erroneous conclusions (and as far as I know, that's how stupid publishers can be and have been). But since no-one can say 'casual' or 'hardcore' without a ridiculous train of connotations we don't have terms for the two broad groups and no real way for a study to distiguish them.

We already have a term that describes people who play RTS, MMO, FPS, JRPG, WRPG, Wii, or Triple A. We humans like to call those people gamers. There's no need to divide these gamers into sub-categories to play imaginary Business.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

We already have a term that describes people who play RTS, MMO, FPS, JRPG, WRPG, Wii, or Triple A. We humans like to call those people gamers. There's no need to divide these gamers into sub-categories to play imaginary Business.

I agree with the former but not the latter. Gamer is an all-inclusive term that covers everything. We can't just look at everything 'gamer' defines because it isn't useful information. If you're making a JRPG, do you want to know what fans of sports games are going to want from it? Or mobile gamers? For that matter, if you're making a microtransaction-riddled piece of shovelware, do you want to work around the reactions of a hobbyist, or employ the tactics that other similar games use targeting people who play social and free games? And when you're quoting statistics in a thread talking about PC and console gaming, do you want those to incorporate the populations of mobile gamers? We get survey after survey saying that females make up about half of all gamers and yet in regular player interaction do you find about half are females, even only of the players you have heard speak? My mother would be included as a gamer in this survey and the only thing she plays is Candy Crush. So would I, and I have the opposite tastes. I fail to see how referring to a gaming population that includes both would ever be useful, in discussion, study, marketing, whatever.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

Oh man, this thread.

One thing to keep in mind is that these numbers probably have a lot to do with casual/mobile gaming. I think it would be interesting to see what the numbers look like if you filter out all the respondents who just play peggle/angry birds/cut the rope/ ect.

Why? Those are arguably flagship mobile titles. Would you take seriously a study of Xbox gamers that filtered out Call of Duty or Halo?

Seriously, "gamer" is such a vague term nowadays it refers to too many people- these kind of surveys are useless.

It's fairly clear that this particular survey is referring to video games. There's actually a lot of useful statistics in there.

This is simply intentionally bad data gathering being used to make a false image of gaming, and is harmful in the long run since it gives smaller indie devs who don't know any better an image of a market which isn't there.

What? The gender data is one graph on one page on the entire report, which itself is fairly comprehensive. How is that 'intentionally bad data gathering' or a 'false image of gaming'?

People who occasionally play Angry Birds are not gamers. They wouldn't even label themselves as such. Misleading data is misleading.

I occasionally play Angry Birds, and I'm a fairly keen 'gamer'. Why arbitrarily limit people who infrequently play particular titles that don't fit your standards from the data?

For pointless and misleading statistics full of cherry-picking and bias, look no further than ESA gaming statistics.

Where's your evidence for this allegation?

 

[FalloutJack]

So, the gaming industry is equal-opportunity towards its consumers, then? Good to know.

Why do people keep acting surprised about this sort of thing? I've got a girl who conquers RTS games, loves action, and plays MMOs.

 

[Busard]

snippity

Because usually, surveys like this are usually made to help people better understand a demographic and also to help professionals to know who they're dealing with. It's usually not just meant to be something to make everyone feel good because "eeeeeeveryone is a gamer".

If I want to make a game, I want to have the feedback of people who actually know what the fuck they want and who know what they're talking about. It's cool if someone wants to play angry birds or candy crush or whatever mobile tra- i mean legitimate game in their spare time, but they're not the core gaming public., and if you want to make a good core game, you don't want to cater to these people, because their expectations and quality standards are different. However you twist it, it's delusional to call people who are solely in the casual market as "gamers", as usually this term USED to be connoted to people who actually spend most of their time not only playing games but also had a fairly good knowledge of the overall gaming landscape in general.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

snippity

Because usually, surveys like this are usually made to help people better understand a demographic and also to help professionals to know who they're dealing with. It's usually not just meant to be something to make everyone feel good because "eeeeeeveryone is a gamer".

If I want to make a game, I want to have the feedback of people who actually know what the fuck they want and who know what they're talking about. It's cool if someone wants to play angry birds or candy crush or whatever mobile tra- i mean legitimate game in their spare time, but they're not the core gaming public., and if you want to make a good core game, you don't want to cater to these people, because their expectations and quality standards are different. However you twist it, it's delusional to call people who are solely in the casual market as "gamers", as usually this term USED to be connoted to people who actually spend most of their time not only playing games but also had a fairly good knowledge of the overall gaming landscape in general.

So let me get this straight: you want people to conduct surveys to help people understand the various demographics they could be targeting, but you want them to completely rule out a particular demographic because 'they're not the core' gaming public, even if the survey suggests that they're a lucrative market?