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Picture a gamer, someone who spends countless hours immersed in one of those online role-playing alternate realities. And what do you see? Is it a physically fit female closer to 40 than 14? If not, you may need to rethink your assumptions about geekdom. Because a study in the Journal of Communication shows that when it comes to dominating the virtual world, women are actually more hardcore than men.
Scientists conducted a survey of some 7,000 players who were logged on to a game called EverQuest II. And they discovered some interesting things. First off, the average age of the gamers surveyed was 31. And that playing time tended to increase with age. Which is also where the sex differences come in. The female gamers actually logged more time online: an average of 29 hours a week, versus 25 for the males, with the top players putting in 57 hours a week on the girl’s side, and 51 for the guys. What’s more, it looks like women are more likely to lie about how much they really play. The researchers found that the gals tended to lowball how long they spend glued to the screen.
So, never ask a women her age. Or how much time she spends defeating the dark elves to rebuild the world of Norrath.
—Karen Hopkin
[The above text is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
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8 Comments
Add Commentso where does the "physically fit" part factor in?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd where does "science" fit in this article?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd what is "geeky" about playing video games all day?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this.... oh.... wait....
From my understanding, EverQuest has always been more popular with women than men. I think you would need a broader spectrum of games. It is a chicken vs. egg problem. Does the number of male and female gamers reflect the psychology of those groups, and their desire to "play games" or does it reflect the game industry's demographic focus which has mostly been directed at males? It's good that this study seems to suggest that, "if you build them they will come" but it could also reflect the fact that there are so few games directed towards females that the ones that are will attract a large number of core female gamers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis article is a little misleading in that the study showed that females were a relatively small proportion of EQII players, although they did put in more playtime than men.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOther statistics not stated in the article were: EQII players had a stat significantly lower Body Mass Index than the average American; EQII players exercised more than average americans; EQII players were very significantly less religious than average Americans; EQII players had significantly higher income and higher levels of education than average americans; EQII players had stat significantly higher reported depression and substance abuse levels, but had lower reported anxiety than average americans.
They play longer because they make more mistakes. Duh!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHaven't you ever actually watched a female play a mmo....
Yes, because they make more mistakes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDuh. Haven't you ever actually watched a female play a mmo?
Actually I'd think playing MMO's fall under those mechanical and repetitive tasks that women supposedly excel at - in WW2 they were recruited to make ammo, in Web 2.0 they're the MMO's most dedicated playerbase. Duh.
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