February 20, 2006
MMORPG demographics
Was going to post this over at Josiah's blog (here), but it got long enough that I decided to just make a post out of it.
Julia provides interesting commentary as always, but misses something. Success in any MORPG like WoW is a highly social ordeal. A casual gamer who basically just "plays the game" will probably be able to hit the level cap with a minimum of fuss, but to truly explore all the system as to offer, you must organize with other players. There are monsters in endgame instances that can entirely wipe a group of 40 players unless they're synchronized like clockwork. You can have the most efficient uses of the skills of your chosen class memorized perfectly, but unless you're willing to play nicely with others, you'll never really get anywhere. I'd like to think this has a lot to do with other largely arbitrary social systems like, say, real life.
WoW isn't any less arbitrary or meaningless than any other system you care to name, it's just that the inequalities have been largely ironed out and the rules made explicit.
Josiah is also right that Julian's demographic analysis is off. In fact, it isn't just off, it's almost completely wrong. If he had said the same things about earlier instantiations of online games, he would have been more or less right. EverQuest never really garnered more than about half a million members. But WoW has attracted an order of magnitude more people than that. It's actually starting to replace golf as a social space for doing business in certain circles.
Here's an article by a Stanford professor on the subject. It covers Ultima Online, EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, and Star Wars Galaxies, which at the time of its publication accounted for 75% of the market in North America.
The results are totally different than the stereotype proposed by Julian. The average gamer age is about 25. 36% are married and 22% have kids. That's one in five. 50% are employed full-time and 22% are full-time students. This means that only 1 in 4 fit the teenager stereotype. A significant percentage play with family members and/or spouses/SOs. The only thing Julian was right about is the gender split, which is about 9:1 male:female.
I would venture to say that these figures are from two years ago, and are probably a lot more balanced now that WoW is out. I'd be fascinated to read an updated report.
I think Julian's comparison to these games as a substitute is far more accurate than any broader sociological analysis. It's something to do to kill some time, and it's something that is increasingly appealing to an increasing number of people, especially as games move away from requiring certain levels of geek prowess and towards interfaces than any six-year-old can manage. The UI designers at Blizzard have always been among the best in the industry, and I'd bet a week's pay that the broad appeal of WoW has a lot to do with that fact.
And as to Julian's suggestion that this is the typical defensive response of any self-conscious minority, I'd say that this is exactly the kind of response you should expect to get when you treat a normal member of society like a member of the lunatic fringe.
For those interested in further exploring the degree to which gaming has begun to break out of the demographic limitations of older gaming "communities" such as those associated with SimCity, a comparison between the statistics of MMORPG enthusiasts and those of aficionados of some other, more traditional form of American entertainment - scrimmage football, for instance - might be illustrative. As a humanities major I'm almost wholly innumerate, and have neither the interest nor the ability to check whether, for example, a 36% marriage rate and a mere 50% full employment rate are conventional ratios for ordinary Americans with the given age distribution.
I really only initiated this conversation because whenever Josiah hints at an insecurity, I feel it is my duty to exacerbate it in any manner I can.
Oh, and for the sake of my political future, let me note that I'm not at all gamophobic. Some of my best friends are gamers. And if anybody disputes that, I'll be calling a press conference with Kang the Decapitator. On my back. *In HDTV*.
Posted by: Julian at February 20, 2006 11:39 PMJulian, was that "*HDTV*" comment an attempt to endure yourself to the geek community? If so, it was touching.
Ryan, I'm trying to dig up the article I read on the demographics of WoW. I remember finding it fascinating. I'm sure wow is still predominantly male, but if its a game that my sister can get into (and the wives of a couple friends) then it would seem Blizzard has done something important to attract both genders.
The still doesn't absolve them of the hell that is Lag'Jaeden.
Posted by: JosiahQ at February 21, 2006 08:53 AMThe trouble with these demographic surveys is that they consistently ignore the most interesting questions. I can say this with some degree of authority -- or at least experience -- since I spent my formative years bombarded by innumerable reams of research defending the social and intellectual capacities of homeschoolers. But the only question that even mildly intrigued me -- and would become more pressing with age -- was whether any of these students were worth engaging in a ten-minute conversation. (The answer, again limited by my experience, was not so much.)
The same data is missing in this examination: WoW players have full-time jobs, are apparently capable of sexual intercourse, and are efficient at sychronized activity, but would I want to talk with any of them? (I know I would want to talk with two, but that's not a sufficient sample.) This is of course a highly subjective and unquantifiable element, but it might be approached with research on the additional interests of gamers. What books do they read? Do they like poetry? What are their snap judgments on Mailer? Have they grasped the attributes of Zooey Deschanel? Do they drink heavily?
If I could get some reliable data on these matters, I would be less likely to stereotype my Kang-carrying comrades.
Posted by: mesh at February 21, 2006 01:51 PM