Friday, April 6, 2007

Article #2 from Required Blogs

According to the article "Gaming is for Grown-Ups" on ClickZ Stats, one third of adults spend more than 10 hours per week playing games compared to only 11% of teens. The article speculates the reason for the gap is because teens have less free time. I also feel adults spend so much time playing games because it is something to do when they are bored at work, and they usually have access to PCs right at their desks.

While adults prefer to game on PCs, teens log in more playing time on consoles. I was very surprised to read that teen girls make up a large portion of multiplayer gamers. Even though I was a teen only 4 years ago, I knew very few girls who played online or video games. However, more girls game now in general. Also, games geared towards girls encourage multiplayer involvement. For example, a popular game among girls is Dance Dance Revolution where players can compete in “dance-offs.”

I was drawn to this article because I have always been very curious about “gamers.” I thought they were a small group of teens, mostly male, who were completely obsessed with gaming, fantasy, sci-fi, and so on. However, my opinion has completely changed, and I, too, may be a gamer someday since the most female gamers are in the 25-34 year old age group.

2 comments:

Chris Leone said...

The market for gaming consoles is a lot larger than people realize it is. I think that is why Nintendo has been so succesful with it's new system. It is marketed towards gamers 4-94. Even my grandmother was able to play Nintendo's new system.

mwinter said...

I think the fact that most games can be played against other people from around the world via the internet has greatly increased the popularity of gaming. You no longer need a friend to come over to play, now you can talk and play against people from europe or asia as if they were sitting right there with you.