Adult Women are Now the Largest Demographic in Gaming
According to the study, last year saw a significant boom in women over 50—their numbers jumped by a whopping 32 percent between 2012 and 2013. The study
alsorevealed that 59 percent of Americans play games, with gaming consoles present in 51 percent of all U.S. households.
All of that means that stereotypes are breaking fast in the gaming industry, particularly the longheld stereotype of the adult woman as an outlier who sticks to mobile games and "social" games on Facebook while the more hardcore gamer, the "serious" (male) gamer, goes for console games.
Though this stereotype has long persisted, and even
been used as a hiring tactic, the new data suggests there's little if any truth to it—especially not when you consider that the average adult woman has been gaming for 13 years.
Sorry, male gamers of Reddit and 4Chan, but
Angry Birds only came out five years ago. Unless you want to try to argue that women have just been playing
Bejeweled for the last 13 years, the math just doesn't add up.
And while the total audience for mobile social games is now bigger than ever, the audience for computer and video games is now an even 50-50 split between male and female genders.
