50% of Adults Play Video Games @ MSNBC

Skavenhorde writes of an article at MSNBC that cites a recent survey showing 50% of NA adults play video games and around 20% play them "almost daily". There's even an oblique connection to Fallout 3 from the opening:

NEW YORK - After a day of dirty diapers and "Dora the Explorer," of laundry and homework time, when her four kids are finally asleep, Sarah Ninesling begins roaming the ruins of a post-apocalyptic Washington, D.C., fighting mutants to help save the survivors of a nuclear war.
The 30-year-old stay-at-home mom from New York's Long Island plays "Fallout 3" and other games like "World of Warcraft" and "The Lord of the Rings Online." She plays every day, sometimes past midnight, to escape and relax and feel a sense of accomplishment.

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More information.

I think adults should have better things to do than playing games. When I was young, there were no such things as games. Hah.

Now, back to King's Bounty. (Hmm. Maybe I should have waited until I turnh level 54 by the end of this month....)

People dont want to gel in front of a television anymore simply being bystanders. Games rule, i'll be gaming when im 80!

xSamhainx said:

People dont want to gel in front of a television anymore simply being bystanders. Games rule, i'll be gaming when im 80!

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As an 'adult' I agree with that but for a different reason. I don't watch TV much anymore because television has become so terrible. The advent of 'reality' TV has been the demise of good old 'drama' or even good sitcoms (Seinfield rip).

With the little amount of free time I have these days, I'd much rather spend it gaming. It's far better entertainment than TV hands down.

xSamhainx said:

People dont want to gel in front of a television anymore simply being bystanders. Games rule, i'll be gaming when im 80!

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My sentiments exactly. A nice mix of real life fun with my friends and family mixed in with some hardcore gaming till I die. That is my life right there. Gotta find the balance in all things.

I think the gaming trend is a combination of being better entertainment then TV, interactivity and immersion which take you back to your childhood. And if you find the right games, it keeps your brain working. It lets you go out and play without needing traction after.

Good article (hamster's rule!). I was surprised to find out the total was as high as 50%. But not as much that parents and college graduates play the most (That just makes sense, I think).

Is this the first credible survey to determine this? If so, then this might be a good time for CRPG makers to consider broadening their view of their market. Specifically, I'm wondering how many of those adult gamers read science fiction / fantasy-adventure novels. How does that compare with the number who play today's CRPGs?

Oh, but I think entertaining television still exists. I'm not sure what the percentage is and I'm not too interested in looking up when these series where aired, but

- Arrested Development
- It's Always Sunny In Philidelphia
- The Sopranos

...thoroughly entertained me. I just think the way games are viewed as a mainstream pastime has changed.

I think the development of gaming into almost anything, from 15 minute puzzle quickies to military-grade simulations, has also made it far more appealing. Games are increasingly more graphic and just flat out amazing at times. Makes sense that more people would finally sit up and take notice, it isnt just another NES platformer anymore.

I haven't been able to stop playing since 1987 and thought I was kind of a freak, now what a relief!
Still, I find good books (not necessarily fiction) are no less entertaining and more through provoking than games. "There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more" .

The actual PEW Gamer survey (pdf) is a fascinating trove of information; far more than revealed in the article. It is well worth a read, especially for those in the industry. The highest percentage of games played are on the PC, consoles playing is mostly limited to those 29 and under, there are far more older gamers than was suspected.. ect

TheMadGamer said:

As an 'adult' I agree with that but for a different reason. I don't watch TV much anymore because television has become so terrible. The advent of 'reality' TV has been the demise of good old 'drama' or even good sitcoms (Seinfield rip).

With the little amount of free time I have these days, I'd much rather spend it gaming. It's far better entertainment than TV hands down.

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I couldn't agree with this more. Let's not even talk about the horrid scheduling, channel packaging, and the ridiculous rising costs of the whole mess. Once you add the annoying repetitive commercials into the mix, which are roughly 1/3 of a 60 minute show, it's amazing I even subscribe to a service for my TV anymore. In the new year I think DvD season episodes and downloadable content from the web may just replace any subscriber service/package a company may seek to force upon me.

Cm said:

I think the gaming trend is a combination of being better entertainment then TV, interactivity and immersion which take you back to your childhood. And if you find the right games, it keeps your brain working. It lets you go out and play without needing traction after.

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Now if only parents would realize this with regard to themselves as well as their children.

xSamhainx said:

I think the development of gaming into almost anything, from 15 minute puzzle quickies to military-grade simulations, has also made it far more appealing. Games are increasingly more graphic and just flat out amazing at times. Makes sense that more people would finally sit up and take notice, it isnt just another NES platformer anymore.

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Very well said. Of course this mainstream attraction has it's downside too

Ubbax
"We don't stop playing because we grow old...
We grow old because we stop playing." -George Bernard Shaw

There was an interesting point made on Boston Legal last week, that while the largest % of the market (over 50%) is aged over 50, TV execs ONLY program for the under 30's. The only show with a cast composed mostly of over 40's is BL and it's now finished.

My TV isn't even plugged in (because I'm poor and I ain't paying for cable), but I take issue with the sentiment that the quality of TV has deteriorated oh so much. I'm no TV historian, but I expect that in the entire time between when TV first became a true institution and 30 minutes ago, TV quality has always been roughly as it is now: 2 or 3 really good shows, and a titanic ocean of crummy ones. Think back to the most lauded of TV shows... were more than two or three on at a time? In syndication maybe. I mean, there's just been a lot of bad TV on the networks since day one.

Sure, it's hard for anybody with even a quarter of a brain to see reality TV as anything short of disasterous influence on TV quality. But isn't that heinous development countered by the unprecedented quality of the series on pay networks like HBO and Cinemax? Never before have there been so many different channels clammoring for your attention. Even if the percentage of good shows dropped due to the massive expansion in channels, who cares? You can only watch one thing at a time. I'd be skeptical of a claim that on an absolute basis there are fewer good shows on TV now than in the 70s or 80s. And that stuff from earlier just does nothing for me at all.

TV always has sucked except for a handful of shows. Gaming is a lot more fun as it's interactive.

Those numbers are far too high for my taste. Doesn't look like they really tried to differentiate the Games included with Windows (Solitaire, Pinball, Minesweeper, ...) and everything else. I would like to see numbers on how many of the people paid for a game for themselves to play to exclude the free web and windows games. Unfortunately that would include pirates but I have to believe that even they will occasionally pay for a game or answer as though they did.

TheMadGamer said:

As an 'adult' I agree with that but for a different reason. I don't watch TV much anymore because television has become so terrible. The advent of 'reality' TV has been the demise of good old 'drama' or even good sitcoms (Seinfield rip).

With the little amount of free time I have these days, I'd much rather spend it gaming. It's far better entertainment than TV hands down.

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+1.

That's how I got back into computer games over the last couple of years. Now I don't own a telly. There is nothing i watch: get my news from the web.
That means I play games almost every day, even if sometimes that's only for, perhaps a 1/2 hour or so.

Playing games has all but killed my book reading though.....but i still buy new books and fully intend to read them all at some point........lol.

I played no game during two periods, well after I started play some. Those two periods last 4 years and 5 years. Unlike some people seem think here, that's possible to survive without to play any game!

EDIT: Well I'm not sure this will happen anymore except for few months or for some very special reason, because now I discovered emulators and possibility to play old games so I'll never be in a dry period where any new game bore me.

Theo said:

Those numbers are far too high for my taste. Doesn't look like they really tried to differentiate the Games included with Windows (Solitaire, Pinball, Minesweeper, ...) and everything else. I would like to see numbers on how many of the people paid for a game for themselves to play to exclude the free web and windows games. Unfortunately that would include pirates but I have to believe that even they will occasionally pay for a game or answer as though they did.

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The data for Youths ages 12-17 actually does have such differentiation however in order to see this you would have had to visit the link in the footnotes. I did not include
Teens, Video Games and Civics (pdf) since it limits itself to that one specific age group and covers a broader range of topics. Perhaps parents may find it of interest.

The last time I inquired I believe greater breakdown for the various subsets for other age groups were planned. Whether those reached fruition I could not say; keep in mind the Teen data was only released Septemper 16/2008.

If you visit the Pew Internet & American Life Project site you can find links to the questionnaires and methods employed for data correlation. There are also various
Polls & Interviews you might wish to participate in.

Ubbax
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. "
-- George Bernard Shaw