I came across an article recently (link here) which claimed that the average player of online social games (i.e. Facebook games) is a 43-year-old woman. How accurate these statistics are, don’t know, but it did get me thinking about the WHO in gaming and how many of these people would actually admit to being a ‘gamer’ if asked directly.
Technically speaking, anyone who has ever played a game on a regular basis could be classified as a ‘gamer’ even if that game is of the lame-graphics-ultimate-time-waster variety. What we’re witnessing are more games being designed and marketed towards different demographics and apparently, 43-year-old women. What we’re not witnessing is the acceptance by those different groups of non-traditional gamers into identifying as gamers.
WHY?
Maybe because, in most circles, admitting you’re a ‘gamer’ is…kinda lame. Unless your friends are like-minded, you’re a kid, or you’re a teenage boy (for whom playing games is acceptable/expected), you can expect to be mocked for telling people you spent four hours yesterday playing [insert video game here]..
Like it or not, games are still widely regarded as a waste of time. Generally speaking, the most you can get out of a game is minus XX hours, a personal sense of achievement in getting to Level XXX or pwning XXX noobs on the battleground, but nothing you can really put on a CV or help you attain your life-long goals.
I like that data about the demographic of casual gamers, though regarding jobs that's no longer true: there are several ways that playing a lot of games can be CV relevant, such as being a WoW guild-leader mattering to management positions for some reason.
ReplyDeleteHaha.. Like the title of your blog post. :)
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