"Survey: two-thirds of online gamers are female"
The third annual release of the Nielsen "Active Gamer Benchmark" study is out, and it contains some surprises. The study looked at so-called "Active Gamers" (those who play video games on a consistent basis) and found that there were currently 117 million such gamers in the United States. While the majority of gamers (70 percent) are male, the balance shifts dramatically when limited to online gamers, which comprised more than half of the total. The study found that nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of online gamers were women. This statistic challenges an earlier study issued by ComScore that had pegged the latter figure at 52 percent.This percentage is not limited to 3D action games, such as CounterStrike or massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft, but includes all computer and video games that feature an online component. Still, the fact that females outnumber males in any kind of aggregate measure of gaming is a massive shift away from conventional wisdom. The traditional, male-dominated games industry may have to sit up and take notice. (Jeremy Reimer, Ars Technica)
Though I play online games--especially online roleplaying games--all the time, I have to admit I'm a bit surprised. My friends and I were always convinced that most of the players we encounter online who claim to be female are actually mirls (males playing girls), but I suppose this study suggests otherwise.
Comments
Chris, I've had similar e-mails about Reimer. Clearly someone has it in for the guy, and keeps repeating the same accusations, without listening to rebuttals.
Posted by: Dennis G. Jerz | November 9, 2006 12:24 PM
While I appreciate the comment and link, Reimer himself didn't play any role in the production of the survey, far as I can tell--only the article he wrote about it. His credentials as a computer science expert really don't come into play here; he's citing a survey and describing the results--and the results are really all that I was interested in here.
Posted by: ChrisU | November 9, 2006 11:13 AM
Jeremy Reimer was exposed as a fraud faking it as some sort of computer expert in the field of computer science here at this url:
http://www.windowsitpro.com/articles/index.cfm?articleid=41095&cpage=187
An interesting read where Reimer gets his behind handed to him, and started up trouble with his arstechnica buddies, and 1 single person ran the lot of them off.
I would suggest you find someone else to cite as an authority in this field. Somebody with eductional credentials in the field of computers and professional experience.
Jeremy Reimer clearly has neither.
Posted by: MByll | November 6, 2006 7:20 PM