A recent survey published by the Entertainment Software Association entitled “Essential Facts” deals with sales, demographic, and usage data within the gaming industry. The full report can be downloaded from 2005 Essential facts. Some of the numbers the report returned are not what you would expect.
– 75% of heads of households play games
– The average age of gamers is 30
– 19% of Americans over 50 play games
– The male / female ratio is 55% male & 43% female [allowing a 2% error margin in the survey]

– Gamers are physically & socially healthy – they spend three times as much time involved in exercise & social activity than they do in actual game play.
– 45% of gamers volunteer more than 5.4 hours a month.
– 63% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children’s lives. This is probably because 32% of them spend time gaming with their kids on a weekly basis.
– 56.8% of online game play is spent on Puzzle/ Game Show/ Trivia type games….not 1st person shooters as is often believed.
“If you’re over 35, chances are you view video games as, at best, an occasional distraction….If you’re under 35, games are a major entertainment and a part of life. In that sense, they are similar to what rock ‘n’ roll meant to boomers.” USA Today
The reality is that gaming is changing the world as we know it. The encouraging thing about the stats from this survey is that they indicate that gamers are in all sorts of places that we don’t expect to find them. At the same time many people who are gamers are not who you would expect them to be.
If gaming is the rock ‘n’ roll of X’ers & Millennials then we need to look around and realise that there are far more of us than we realise. This does however lead to an interesting question……”I wonder what our Woodstock will look like?” 🙂