Was just looking for a site like this, thanks

The marital status of players are quite humourous I find. Women pick up gaming as a habit once married whereas males lose interest. I would have thought it would have been the other way around, or even a dual upsurge once married. I guess this does fit in with the age survey though, as older women game more.

I disagree. My view is that women are often introduced to gaming through a male partner (who is an existing gamer). This explains why there are more women in the right column.

The reason why there are less men in the right column than the left, is because many women will not tolerate their partner spending hours gaming. Believe it or not, some men actually choose sex over gaming! and when given an ultimatum........... the gaming comes second.

I'd have to agree mostly with Rebecca but also of note is when the two graphs are taken together, it seems (though only slightly so) that the women who play, play more if they have the free-time (i.e. home-maker, unemployed). So I have to wonder what portion of the women who are married, what their job status breakdown is, i.e. are they mostly homemakers or part-timers or whatnot.

Speaking for myself I got my long-time gf into World of Warcraft and we constantly play together and love it, we do things beyond the game too of course *shrugs*

Thanks for your work!
It's so helpful...

This study was insightful. I think it would be interesting to incorporate statistics for motivations for certain aged people to play, which games are prefered by people of the different age groups and why. I am curious to find out who (gender/age) finds these things important: character's appearance, socializing with real life friends/ family members, meeting new friends, finding romance, killing things, crafting, role-playing, exploring, achieving titles, earning money through sites like EBay, etc. Linking cultural background (nationality, race, religion, etc.) to motivation would also be interesting.

I'm in a ladies-only guild on Runescape, and the majority of our members are older married women (I believe we have a couple of grandmas, even). And the reason most of them joined the game in the first place? To keep an eye on their kids. The internet can be a scary place, after all; you never know if the person your little boy/girl is talking to/playing with really is who they claim to be.

Scary potential realities aside, though, my friends have gotten hooked on the game in their own right. A few of them even got their husbands hooked on the game, and play with them, and one even started her early-20's-ish daughter to make a character so they could all play as a family. I haven't seen her daughter on in a while--I think her taking care of her newborn might have something to do with that, though.

Thanks. This site has made my AP stats project not only the coolest but the easiest to do in the class. So much great research here.