Electronic gaming is clearly not just for boys anymore. ESA’s latest consumer survey indicates that 39 percent of all gamers are women or girls. In fact, women over the age of 18 make up a greater chunk of the game-playing population (28 percent) than boys between the ages of six and 17 (21 percent). The average adult woman now plays games 7.4 hours per week, about two hours more per week than she did just a year earlier.

Although known primarily as the pursuit of the young, gaming actually appeals broadly to all age groups. In the ESA’s latest survey, the average U.S. game player turns out to be 30 years old while the average game buyer clocks in even older at 36 years of age. Some 17 percent of game players are now over the age of 50, up from 13 percent in 2000. Moreover, ESA found that 94 percent of computer game buyers and 84 percent of console game buyers are older than 18 years old.

In particular, computer gamers tend to be older. In its latest survey, ESA found that 38 percent of the most frequent PC players are over 35 years old. Another 27 percent of the most frequent players are between 18 and 35 years old. But even 19 percent of the most frequent video game players are over 35 years old. And 27 percent of the most frequent console gamers are between 18 and 35 years old.

 

Source: The NPD Group, 1/05

In a sign of the pronounced demographic divide between video and computer gamers, action games still sell best among the console crowd. ESR reports that action games accounted for 30.1 percent of console software sales last year, followed by sports games (17.8 percent), shooter titles (9.6 percent) and racing games (9.4 percent). On the PC side, however, strategy games led the pack, contributing 26.9 percent of all software sales. Family/children’s entertainment games (20.3 percent), shooter titles (16.3 percent) and role-playing games (10.0 percent) rounded out the list of most popular genres.

Like PC gamers, online gamers are more likely to be older and female than console gamers. More than 35 million consumers flock each month to the four most popular online gaming destinations – the Yahoo, America Online, MSN and Pogo websites – to play games for free or a small fee. Such popular casual gaming sites as Pogo.com attract more women than men. Plus, women now account for 58 percent of all U.S. mobile players, according to the Yankee Group.