Teens Love Guitar Hero, Part One
October 10th, 2008(Over the next few weeks I’m going to be rolling out what I call “Version 2.0″ of this blog. Basically, I’m going to start incorporating all the things I’ve learned lately about blog writing and visual thinking. The content won’t change much, but the presentation should be quite different as I roll out all the new ideas. As for this week’s post, it’s on a survey of teen video gamers, and is large enough that I’ll have to cover it in several parts. This week is on basic findings.)
My twin brother and editor Ed recently directed me to a survey called “Teens, Video Games, and Civics” It’s put out by a group called the “Pew Internet and American Life Project”, which is a refreshingly non-profit, non-partisan “fact tank”. (That’s the first time I’ve heard that phrase and I’ve already deemed it to be awesome.) It’s really worth a read if you’re into video games, as I am.
Many different sites have written about the survey, but I’d like to give my own, more in-depth take here on the survey from a (young) adult gamer’s perspective.
Quick and Dirty Findings
A lot of things I read in this report dispel common stereotypes about gamers. Here’s a sample of findings from the survey:
- Almost all teens play games.
- Gender and age are key factors in describing teens’ video gaming.
- The most popular games played by teens today span a variety of genres and ratings.
- The most popular game genres include games with violent and nonviolent content. (As in many popular games are violent, and many are not.)
- The quantity of gameplay is not strongly related to teens’ interest or engagement in civic and political activities.
- Teens who take part in social interaction related to the game (such as commenting on websites or contributing to discussion boards) are more engaged civically and politically.
So the survey wants to know if games make kids shut-ins or not. Also, they want to find out more about teens’ gaming habits more generally. Fair enough.
Facts about teen gamers
The younger generation continues to surprise me. (I’m 28.) In an earlier post I read that 87% of “tweens” (ages 10-13) eat quesadillas as “an everyday food”. In this survey, I read that 97% of teens (ages 12-17) play video games, and fully 94% of girls. OK, I knew video games were popular with kids, but wow. (I’m also curious about that 1% of teen boys that don’t play games. Are they Amish?)
To be fair, this decreases sharply with age (especially with girls) and these statistics include even infrequent gamers, but still. Video games are some kind of phenomenon. I had no idea that many girl gamers were out there, at least among teens.
And they play video games a lot. 50% of teens reported they played games “yesterday” (as in the day before the survey), with a strong bias toward male gamers. Other quick facts:
- 86% play on a gaming console
- 73% play on a PC (desktop or laptop)
- 60% play on a portable console
- 48% play on a cell phone or PDA
Teens play games all the time, then, and on many different platforms.
The Games They Play
I haven’t covered any specific video games or genres yet, though. How do those stack up? Since it’s such a great table, here’s a reproduction of the table they used to show what game genres teens reported playing and how popular they were:
Surprised? I was. I had no idea that racing and puzzle games were more popular with teens than sports. “Madden NFL” has routinely dominated video game sales figures for years. To think that more teens actually play puzzle games blows my mind (which is due, in large part, to girls preferring puzzle games).
I also had no idea rhythm games were so popular. I was surprised that “Dance Dance Revolution” (DDR), a great but hardcore nerd music game, was so popular. I’ll go ahead and admit that I played DDR fairly regularly for at least 5 years. I actually used to make up “freestyle” routines and perform them in public and at tournaments. Guess I better stop now before you think I’m a bigger nerd than you already do…
And I was shocked that fighting, first-person shooter (FPSes), role-playing (RPGs), survival horror, and online role-playing games (MMOs) were so far down the list. I guess they’re more niche (read: male) genres than I thought.
What specific games are the most popular? Again, here’s a reproduction of the Pew Gaming’s survey’s table:
If you add up the general and specific mentions, “Halo” and “Guitar Hero” come out way on top of “Madden NFL”, which surprised me as well. Madden NFL has a bigger share of gamers’ wallets, but it seems Halo and Guitar Hero have greater “mind share”. As for the other games, I had a laugh at “Solitaire”, “DDR”, and “Tetris” being so high up. Also, I’d be very curious to see, now that “Rock Band” is out, where that would rank. I’m guessing that since it was made by the Guitar Hero guys (they left Activision, who continues to pump out the subpar versions of the series) Rock Band would be as popular as Guitar Hero, or moreso.
The fact that those music games, in turn, are blatantly ripped off the long-standing “Bemani” game series in Japan (of which DDR is the biggest game) makes it even more amazing. Konami (who makes the Bemani games) missed out on the gaming opportunity of a lifetime by dragging their feet on this. (It was very much a conscious decision on their part.) For shame.
This game list also goes to show that some games outshine their genre. Guitar Hero (rhythm), Halo 3 (FPS), The Sims (simulation) and DDR (rhythm) all rank a lot higher than the genres they represent. Guess they’re the “elephants in the room” for those genres.
In their parents’ basement?
There’s a prevalent stereotype out there that video gamers are… well… anti-social. The Pew Gaming survey easily dispels this myth, though. Just 24% of teens only play games alone. Still a high number, but certainly not a stereotype. However, 82% of teens play games alone at some point or another, so playing video games alone is still popular.
Within these numbers there is a lot of variety, however:
- 42% of teens who play games with and without others play most often with others in the same room (i.e. locally)
- 42% of teens who play games with and without others most often play alone
- 15% of teens who play games with and without others play most often with people over the internet (many of these are playing MMOs)
The social interaction is split between people that gamers have met online and those they knew in real life. 50% of teens play games online with people they met online, while 47% of teens only play games with people they know offline. (Don’t ask me where that other 3% went, I don’t know either!)
Boys love playing games they shouldn’t, and many parents don’t know about it
It won’t shock you to know that 4 times as many boys as girls play “Mature” (M) and “Adults Only” (AO) video games. What might shock you is that 12-14-year-olds are equally likely as 15-17-year-olds to have played these games. You’re not supposed to play “M” games until you’re 17, and most stores won’t even stock “AO” games. As always, kids (especially boys) are finding ways to evade parents, store clerks, and whoever else to play these games. 32% of teens that game (and most teens game) report that at least one of their three favorite games is rated “M” or “AO”.
This is despite the fact that 90% of parents say they always or sometimes know what games their children play, and 80% of parents with young children approve of movie ratings (and probably the same do for video game ratings).
It’s mostly clear that the vast majority of parents like the ratings and that they think they know what their kids are playing, at least sometimes. Yet how can they miss the 1/3 of teens that are playing these “M” and “AO” games that they say are their favorites? There’s an obvious disconnect here. The most likely culprit is that parents are mistaken about knowing what games their kids play. Many parents (especially older ones) don’t play video games with their kids. How would we expect so many of them to know what games are being played, then?
In my experience, many parents don’t have a clue what games their kids play beyond the questionable “edutainment” they buy them. When they leave the room, though, it’s time to get the “unapproved” games out of the drawer, or invite your buddy (who inevitably has the game) over.
There’s always the possibility that kids are lying about playing “M” or “AO” games to seem cool or whatever, of course. But my guess is that there’d be much less incentive for that. On the other side of the coin, though, I think parents would be much less reluctant to admit they don’t know as much about their kids as they thought. The idea that 72% of teen parents always or sometimes check the ratings before their children can play is a bit unrealistic, I think. (More about self-reporting and the quality of data later, in one of the upcoming parts of this series.)
There is a silver lining, however. Happily, 62% of parents of gamers say video games have no effect on their child one way or the other. (Parents of non-gamers are much, much more negative. I’ll leave any conclusions here up to the reader.) This has also been my experience. Video games are like TV, movies, and any other form of entertainment. There’s the good, the bad, and the ugly. Singling it out as the cause for the decline of our youth has always been a bit alarmist, and more than likely due in part to the video gaming gender gap.
Even more interestingly, more parents of gamers think video games have a positive influence on their kids than negative (19% vs. 13%). So even though parents might be mistaken about what games their kids play and what ratings they have, at least they’ve taken a fairly neutral or even semi-positive stance on video games on the whole. The avid gamer in me is cheered by that.
More social gamers are more social generally
Finishing up here, it’s no surprise to me that more engaged gamers are also more engaged citizens. The top quartile of gamers with civic gaming experience are more politically involved than the bottom quartile. (Civic gaming experiences being stuff like posting on message boards, helping out other players, and so on.) What’s cool, though, is that the civic gaming experiences were more egalitarian. They were less limited by race, age, or income. How many fledgling Barack Obamas are video games creating? I don’t know, but that’s the politics of hope if I’ve ever heard it.
(In Part Two, I’ll be digging into the findings with more depth. See you then!)
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October 10th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I like the new look of your blog. Maybe you should try to stick to one bold word/phrase per paragraph though?
October 10th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
I want to know who put down Solitaire. I mean, seriously? Solitaire?
Anyway, it’s good they were able to look at male gamers versus female gamers because those are some stark differences. I think girls would like RPG’s more if they had more exposure to them. FPS’s are probably never going to appeal to most girls, though. My sister says she doesn’t like to see people hit each other (referring to MMA) so it’s not likely actual gun violence would go over so well. She used to love Sid Meier’s Colonization, though, because she could befriend natives and take care of cities (whereas I was more inclined to attack the natives and take their gold). I did get her to play Street Fighter but I’m not sure whether she enjoyed it (and she always played Chun Li so it may have to do with character options and marketing).