(no subject)

[prog]

From some WashPost thingy:

The Entertainment Software Association noted last year that the average age of a video game player is 30 and that the average age of a video game buyer is 36. Parents are involved in the purchase of games 83 percent of the time, the association said.

Those two sentences together present a weird picture. Um... so what you're saying is, the average video game player is a basement-dwelling manchild who has to hit mom up for $50 before taking the Metro down to the EB in his greasy sweatpants. And how the EB got into his sweatpants, he'll never know.

Actually, this statistic has got to be baloney all around, unless they're playing loose with what "average" means (or they mean it in a weaselly "conversational" non-mathematical sense). I really don't think it's remotely possible that there are as many video game players older than me than there are players younger than me.

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that make it the median age? Maybe there's just some octogenarians blowing the curve.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Are there any citizens of the western world who are younger than 30 and don't play video games, though? (Besides those whose parents forbid it (not like they don't sneak out to play at friends' houses).)

[queue.livejournal.com]

*raises hand*

[prog.livejournal.com]

...

25? Do I hear 25?

[novalis.livejournal.com]

Very, very rarely.

Math lesson

[queue.livejournal.com]

I really don't think it's remotely possible that there are as many video game players older than me than there are players younger than me.

"Average" can be used in a mathematically correct way to mean "mean", "meadian" (what you're describing in the quoted sentence), or "mode".

If you have a population with ages 10, 12, 28, 30, 30, it is equally valid to say that the average is 22 (mean), 28 (median) or 30 (mode).

Re: Math lesson

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but in this context, it's kind of disingenuous, 's all I'm sayin.

[radiotelescope.livejournal.com]

I believe the 30 statistic and the 36 statistic. (As arithmetic means.)

As for the 83%... that's far too high to be the percentage of game purchases made *by a parent for a child*. But it could just be the percentage of game purchases made *by a parent*. A lot of my friends play video games. Some of those now are parents. None of them gave up game-buying when they spawned.

83% still seems high, but I am biased, since I have the "babies are an alien life form" reflex.

[mrmorse.livejournal.com]

Now that it's at least 3 days late to be responding, I've realized that I know some of what's going on with videogame statistics.

The videogame industry likes to inflate its numbers. Anyone who plays Freecell or online Hearts qualifies as playing videogames as far as these statistics go.

There is a large number of people who play computer versions of card or boardgames and no other videogames. This group skews older and female.

They're not the type of games people think of when you say videogames, but they are videogames.

If the industry broke out statistics on users of videogame consoles, the numbers would be significantly smaller, younger, and maler.

This also explains the disparity on purchases vs. players. Actual videogame purchases are for consoles and the results reflect that subgroup.