Girl Gamers Spend More Time Online Than Guys (Gasp!)

[thedeadqueen]

Time to rethink your stereotypes about gamers--or at least MMO players.  Most of them aren't 14 year old boys.  In fact, in a survey of Everquest II players, the average age of gamers was 31--and playing time actually increased with age.  Women spent more hours online than men (29 to 25 hours/week), and the top women players spent more hours online

Comments

Notes on my own gaming experience

[napthia9]

I wonder if this counted online poker games or stupid flash games. I've been looking at my brother's game collection, and he's moved from WoW to more FPS online games, which I have never played because my mother was so adamant about them being bad for you so I never learned. Also, I don't think games are fun to play if you don't have friends with you, and a lot of the FPS or strategy games have uber-macho marketing plans and themes. Therefore the most tempting FPS games to me are either associated with characters I already like (Batman: Arkham Asylum) or are MEGA popular and fairly generic (Left For Dead), rather that the Call of Duty or Counterstrike serious. Plus a lot of games I'm interested in are horror games, which I'm too scared to play.

What do you think?

Re: Notes on my own gaming experience

[thedeadqueen]

Sample was an MMORPG, which probably explains the results. But old-school Mario-type games, Tetris/puzzle games and the like would probably have a lot of girl players, too.

Re: Notes on my own gaming experience

[napthia9]

Age range for those games would probably also change.

Re: Notes on my own gaming experience

[thedeadqueen]

Judging by the girls I know at university, there'd be a lot of college students.

Re: Notes on my own gaming experience

[thedeadqueen]

What do you think the age range would be?

Re: Notes on my own gaming experience

[napthia9]

I'm not sure- In my own family, practically everybody plays puzzle/free games like Solitaire or Bejeweled. But when it comes to console games, MMOs, FPSs, RPGs, or anything else that might require a save point, everyone older than my Uncle Mark doesn't play. (Uncle Mark was born late 60s, so he's almost Gen X. Also, he was a nerd.)

As for college students, I've noticed there's a tendency to play group games (FPSs that are online, for example) or puzzle/free games. I think the trend is towards games that don't involve plots or encourage you to play for extended periods of time. Because w/stuff like, say Kingdom Hearts, I might be able to save my game and go back to it after finals week, but I'll have forgotten stuff about where I was or what combos were really working for me. Whereas w/something like Left 4 Dead a player doesn't need to keep track of things from game to game and the controls are easy to relearn again. And w/WoW, a player can enjoy the game in 15 min increments b/c of online friends.

Re: Notes on my own gaming experience

[thedeadqueen]

OMG...your family is addicted to Bejeweled too? That's great.

I would say, though, that group games with a roleplaying component have an ongoing storyline that can just as easily be forgotten as Kingdom Hearts. Well...maybe a little less easily, if you're the one creating the storyline, but still...lot of details to keep track of.

Re: Notes on my own gaming experience

[thedeadqueen]

But your points about how different games fit into a college student's life make a lot of sense to me.

Re: Notes on my own gaming experience

[napthia9]

We WERE Bejeweled addicts. But we're three months clean and counting now!

Yeah, a straight-out break with WoW is a lot harder to manage than "I'm really busy, therefore I will only log on for 15 minutes to check mail and talk to friends," especially if there's an extended role-playing scenerio. Hell, I forgot things even without taking a break from play!