prog | (no subject)

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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.