Grab the statistics here.Most of the stuff you care about will be in the first 6 pages. If you're writing a paper for school or something, it's a pretty good set of video/computer game related statistics.
- 94% of the time a person under the age of 18 purchases a game a parent is present.
- 83% of the time a person under the age of 18 receives permission from the parents before renting or buying a game. The ESA does lobby for the video game industry, these statements sound a lot like stuff they'd put in a pamphlet they'd send out to lawmakers considering video game legislation.
- Puzzle games are the most popular online games. Yawn.
- Video games seem to sell in much greater volume than computer games.
- A World of Warcraft expansion pack was the best selling computer game of 2007.
- Only 4 of the top 20 selling video games in 2007 were rated M. The best selling console game was Halo 3.
- In 2007, the highest selling genre of games was strategy games. That surprised me.
- Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33%) than boys age 17 or younger (18%).
- The average game playing age is 35.
This data is only representative of general population of America. I'm pretty sure that it goes without saying that if you live in Kenya these won't apply to you. If you want statistics for your country search for your national video game trade group and hope they publish some kind of statistics.
If you live in England,
the name of your organization is ELSPA, their website is www.elspa.com and you can find their 4 year old and mostly boring, industry related data here. The information
you actually want is
here. Askaboutgames.com is maintained by ELSPA.
Here's a quick summary:
- 27.2% of all active gamers in the UK are women.
- 32.2% of the UK population are gamers. The sites goes on to mention that 26% of French nationals are gamers. Evidently the British hate the French so much that even their trade groups try and one up them.
- 38.2% of the UK population is an active computer gamer.
The Interactive Software Federation of Europe has statistics for all of Europe. You can find a huge number of studies by clicking on "the industry", then "studies and reports", then "industry and gamers." I don't have time to look through all the reports, if you find something interesting, feel free to post. There is also a huge number of academic papers here related to violence and video games, so if you plan on writing a paper for school on the subject anytime soon, bookmark it! They've got some in French and German too. It's a great resource. In fact, bookmark this whole thread.
What is the ESA?The ESA is the U.S. association dedicated to serving the business and public affairs needs of companies
publishing interactive games for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers, and the
Internet. The ESA offers services to interactive entertainment software publishers including a global antipiracy
program, owning the E3 Media & Business Summit, business and consumer research, federal and
state government relations, First Amendment and intellectual property protection efforts.
Where do these numbers come from?The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) released its 2008 Essential Facts About the Computer
and Video Game Industry in July 2008. The data included in 2008 Essential Facts was gathered in an
annual study conducted by Ipsos-MediaCT for the ESA. The study is the most in-depth and targeted
survey of its kind, gathering data from over 1,200 nationally representative households that have
been identified as owning either or both a video game console or a personal computer used to run
entertainment software.
