On my search for demographics on The Sims users (a study I read a couple of years ago which claimed 60% of the Sims userbase was made up of women over the age of 18) I found this:
The first report titled, "Audience Benchmark: Adult Video Game Adoption, Cross-Ownership and Usage" finds that one in ten online adults owns a current generation console - either a Playstation2, Xbox or Nintendo Gamecube - and notes the prevalence of multiple and cross-device ownership. "Cross-ownership metrics are very revealing for game companies. They are vital to assessing the effectiveness of differentiation and upgrade strategies," said Gartenberg. The report also showed the broad appeal of low-intensity puzzle and board games among online adult users: 61% of those surveyed cited this as their favorite genre.
<a href="http://www.jupitermedia.com/corporate/releases/02.11.06-gamerep.html">link</a>
Certainly an old study, but what it demonstrates that most people can not seem to grasp is that (for the most part) "Mature" games are not games for adult gamers; they are games for male "young-adult" gamers. Knowing my father, he would probably enjoy a game like Civilization and I have gotten him to play Wii Sports (he enjoyed it a lot because he could play on even terms with everyone) and other reasonably simple games; I'm pretty sure he would never play a game like Halo and would comment that a game about a "Lesbian, vampire demonslayer with guns" was amazingly childish.
