The changing demographic of the gamer

Anyone who’s played video games has heard the stereotype that engulfs them. The anti-social, nerdy teenage male sitting in his parent’s basement, yelling at people over the internet through his headset and rambling on about mana points and such.

Whatever people want to believe, the type of people who play video games is changing. Who says so? The Entertainment Software Association, that’s who.

According to ESA statistics, women of age 18 or older make up a larger percentage of people who play video games (30%) than males age 17 or younger (23%).

Talk about breaking stereotypes.

In fact, the average age of a video game player, according to the ESA, is 33 years old.

It’s an interesting thought: the idea that those Wii commercials with the family sitting down and playing a rousing game of Mario Party is not all that unlikely. Why? Over two-thirds of household heads (69%) play video games.

That’s a large chunk of Americans who are settling in for a night with a joystick, and not necessarily the chunk that people like to believe.

You may think I’m pandering to the ESA by regurgitating such statistics, but those stats are the reason people are seeing changing views with the video game industry.

First of all, games have become “mainstream.” Madden sells a million copies every year, and has all sorts of national tournaments and a televised show to accompany it. Halo has become a pop-culture phenomenon, and the more recent Grand Theft Autos have attracted a wide variety of adults looking for a virtual playground. It’s trendy to have the Nintendo or Atari logo plastered on your clothing, or to carry around a DS or PSP much like you would an iPod. Games are cool.

Another way to look at the way games have become mainstream is through the way they’re advertised. Advertising for video games has taken a more advanced rout. In a lot of ways, certain games are advertised like movies. What I mean by that is that actual gameplay rarely shows it’s face in a national television ad. Instead, advertisers are putting together thirty seconds of cinematic cut scenes involving the story surrounding the game. Everyone knows it’s a video game, but the ad makes the game feel more like an experience, and less like Pac-Man or Pong.

Add to that the countless other items not directly related to the industry that are pandered towards gamers: energy drinks, snack foods, furniture, etc. and you have a whole culture being created, much like the culture around the modern film, television or music industries.

All of the effort by corporations is to accommodate the change in who’s sitting behind the controller. So, ladies and gentlemen, sometimes numbers do matter.

In the end, it’s the changing face of a “video game player” that is making the market more viable and more mainstream. Much like movies, it may not be long until video games truly carve out their place in the entertainment industry.

Because, at some point not to far in the future, no one will remember what it’s like to have never played a video game.

- Drew Quandt