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I am indeed speaking from "personal experience and intuition", and I am still assuring you. We are not having an actual arguement that anyone besides the people who share this hobby care about, and rightfully so. That usually means intuition is the best you can get.
Your assurances don't do anything to convince me that your perception is anything more than hastily made generalizations based on your own limited experiences.
When you "assure people" that their own experiences and intuition are wrong, you end up speaking down to them. Especially when you make dismissive generalizations like "nowhere near." (people aren't just wrong.... they've very wrong)
Based on my own personal experiences, gamers are surprisingly old. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most gamers I know are older than 30, and I'd say the average age of BioWare as a developer is over 30 as well (and this studio of 400 people are pretty much all gamers). My uncle is 70 (and loves Half-Life). It takes FOUR 20 year olds to bring the average age of gaming down to 30 for him. Granted, my own experiences may not be reflective of the actual demographic.
That being said, I'm sure you are actively participating in the social events of the gaming community for a long time as well. Sometimes, it just doesn't take research to determine the character of a sub-culture; thinking on the global picture, where gaming is still mostly perceived as a hobby of introvert youngsters and people with less desire or chance to get an active social life, it is not surprising to find it as a hobby associated with teenage men for now. As I said, on some occasions you simply know the big picture without a study being very necessary, and that is coming from a science geek.
Yes, I am directly challenging the notion that that assumption is correct. I think it's grossly outdated and often used in inappropriate ways to justify things that may or may not be correct. Further, science and empiricism has, throughout history, consistently shown that research is in fact necessary and that logic and assumption are routinely wrong.
I went to PAX. I saw the demographic make up of not only content creators, but content consumers. I'd put most in the age of 25-30 for consumers, over 30 for the creators (and I think it's safe to say the creators are typically still game players themselves). That you stated that they are "nowhere near" 30, then we'd have to ask "what does it mean to be near?" 29? 28? 27? And there's still the realization of "how accurate is PAX?" because there's selection bias for people that can afford to go, are okay supporting Penny Arcade, can afford to go, and so forth.
I'd still consider 28 to be "near 30." I'd probably be willing to accept 27, though I'd probably generalize to the nearest multiple of 5 and say near 25, in that case (and if you were to ask me, I do believe that most gamers are over the age of 25).
Hailing from middle-east, I can say that most of the time you just wouldn't say out loud that you are a gamer while hunting for a comforting night, or when you are over a certain age; I can again safely say that while this doesn't seem to be a radical issue, or not an issue at all in the West; the gaming community do indeed share certain traits that are near impossible to deny, male domination and age being the most apparent of them.
IMO this undermines your position. Gamers that hide their gaming status based on sex and age are still gamers, and by your own word they are under represented since they are disinclined to admit that they are gamers. Further, the reticence of people to admit to it is a social construct that I feel is outdated.
I'm much more inclined to concede that more men than women play our games (though I'm not sure if that need be the case, and the turnouts and places like PAX showed a non-trivial presence of women gamers), but given that I was talking about age, I cannot disagree more with your assurances. Where I will be inclined to agree is that younger people tend to spend *more* time gaming (because my gamer friends occasionally do other things than game now, like take care of kids or whatnot). Though depending on how you break down the market, I have easily acquired more games (both in quantity and in dollar value) since I was 25 then the entirety of my life when I was younger (and I have been gaming since I was 3 - god bless Lode Runner).
So yes, I challenge your assurances. I think it's infinitely wiser for you to recognize that "you don't know" because, despite everything that I just said in this post, my opinion is still "I don't know what the average age of gamers is." What I am saying, though, is that I wouldn't be one bit surprised if the average age of gamers (and I'm referring to the "hardcore games" not social games) is near 30. If we do include games that people like you and I don't normally play, I wouldn't be surprised if the number was even higher. My Mom is 60 and plays games every single day.... She just doesn't play the games I'm interested in, although she loves adventure games too. I used to play the Sierra Adventure games with her growing up. She works 3 days a week, and on the 4 days she doesn't she probably spends about 6+ hours each day playing games. I doubt she identifies as a gamer though, which is another issue with self-reporting. And every now and then I treat her to a game I like, like Plants vs Zombies, and she ends up absolutely loving it.
If you don't want to talk about demographics though, I won't push the isse any further
Please don't give a giant post about demographics and then say, after the fact (and The Last Word™) that you're cool not pressing the issue further (since you already decided to press the issue further).
But my opinion that Bioware, like many others, do take advantage of some base desires remains the same; and that's not criticism, it's a necessity to survive in a male dominated market. Visually simulating the instincts you simply can't satisfy in modern society, violence, need to kill, power struggles with other males, and for some the sexual ones(again, considering the "general" social statue of the community) is a very attractive reason for men to play video games, and that's very, very healthy.
And this is why discussions about demographics really frustrate me. Suggesting that games should have these components because otherwise I'd be off satisfying my male urges to kill, compete, and be violent is an exceptionally frustrating thing to read. The implication that such factors are innately biological, as opposed to socially constructed (or adversely, socially countermanded), is doubly frustrating and something that I adamantly disagree with. And it happens every single time.
Say you like these games because you find them fun, rather than justifying it as some sort of outlet for the inner monster that you are. I'm much more inclined to believe the former than the latter, anyways.
EDIT: Granted, my bias is definitely of a Western perspective. Cultures that I'm, for the most part, not at all knowledgeable about, could make most of my assumptions completely wrong. Though I'm not sure how much a game like Dragon Age markets itself to non-Western markets, nor what their consumption rates are there. So yeah, my perspective is one of the western market.
Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 23 février 2014 - 12:31 .
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