2008 Sales, Demographic and Usage Data by ESA (Entertainment Software Association)

 The average game player age is: 35
Gamer age: 25% under 18 year, 49% 18-49 years, 26% 50+ years

In 2008, 26% of gamers were over the age of 50.

The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is: 40

60% Male 40% Female

WOMEN age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33%) than boys age 17 or younger (18%).

Among most frequent gamers, adult males average 15 years for game playing, females for 12 years.

59% of gamers play games with other gamers in person. This is a rise from 56% in 2007 and from 51% in 2006.

Sales by rating: everyone 45% , E 10+ 12%, T 28%, M 15%

85% of Games are below M rated

94% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented.

63% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children's lives.

83% of the time children receive their parents' permission before purchasing or renting a game.

Parents report always or sometimes monitoring the games their children play 88% of the time

22% of most frequent game players say they pay to play online games. This is an increase from 19% in 2007 and a marked increase from 8% in 2004.

ALL DATA IN THIS DOCUMENT IS FROM THE ESA'S 2008 CONSUMER SURVEY

*ESA members Atari, Inc. Capcom, Codemasters , Disney Interactive Studios, Eidos, Epic Games, Her Interactive, Inc. Konami , Microsoft Corporation, Midway ,MTV Games ,Namco Bandai,NC Interactive ,Nintendo ,SEGA , Sony Computer Entertainment, Square Enix, Take-Two,THQ, Ubisoft, Warner Bros.

http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2008.pdf

__________________________________________________________________________

This data makes it very clear why Nintendo's strategy in actively recruiting, children, older gamers and female gamers could hardly fail and why a strategy aimed exclusively at the "traditional hardcore gamer"        will find it very hard to capture a majority of the market. Since this data was gathered specifically for game designers*, it explains why more game's are being designed for the "casual" market and even more will be in the future.

______________________________________________

"And as a brand, Nintendo's got their thing, and we're not trying to get the senior citizen group to get into gaming."
Scott Steinberg,  Sony Computer Entertainment America

I'm not really surprised at the amount of Women into gaming now.

I think it would be very interesting to see breakdowns for each console.

Nice find. Do you perchance have a link to the 2007 data?

A couple of data points to comment on.

"94% of the time parents are present at the time games are purchased or rented."
I know I, naught child that I was, occasionally bought games without my parents ever knowing. I don't see how parents could say that they were there for 94% of game purchases when most of them don't actually know how many games their children have. Same comment applies to
83% of the time children receive their parents' permission before purchasing or renting a game.


63% of parents believe games are a positive part of their children's lives.
That's a nice statisti to hear, especially if there was a neutral option given
ie
63% believe its positive
25% believe its neutral
12% believe its negative

Interesting stuff! Its always bothered me that most games don't come with any apreciable level of local play considering 59% of people play with others. It explains why the sales of games like Halo 3 are so high relative to other games.

No neutral is specified, nor is the terms used for the negative.

I found the 2007 report http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2007.pdf 

I guessed that changing the year would find it. I do web sites and thats how I usually do things.

Two quick facts The average gamer was 33 in 2007, 35 in 2008

24% over the age of fifty in 2007, 26% in 2008

I agree that the parents are probably optomistic about their knowledge of their children. But then we like to think our daughters are virgins until they're 35.

 I didn't quote all the statistics but there are more including rates of online play. Given that the rates of local play are at least three times that of online, I couldn't agree more.

nearly equal women and men, wow, thats surprising

Thanks grampy, why didn't I think to change the 8 to a 7??

females made up 38% in 2007, 40% in 2008, and the gaming age is getting older.

This seems to be confirming that the Wii is expanding the market, and not just taking PS2/GC gamers into the next gen

It explains why I have been playing Boom Blox all weekend. Do you know I actually got my my girlfriends mother to play Castle Crashers? Whats even stranger is that she enjoyed it. Simple, elegant gameplay one stick and one button essentially. 

Seriously these ****ing developers should get their heads out of their ***es and stop targetting 720P and instead release games which support 2-4 player local multiplayer. Its even simpler than online, they don't have to support online servers or try to patch out the inevitable lag and it helps sell the game. Its one huge DUH! Really... Heck even Rockstar would have done better by releasing GTAIV at 576P on both consoles and included 4 player local multi-player.
 

Wait the average 35 year old gamer has their parents present while purchasing a game or they ARE the 35 year old urchasing it? I'm confused.