BBC Profiles UK Gamers

[Varsity]

The BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/) have carried out a study on gaming demographics in light of the new generation of consoles. Their findings give the most up-to-date figures for the British gaming culture. Some examples:

60% of UK citizens between 6 and 65 (26.5 million) play games at some level, including a full 100% of the 6-10 age bracket.
The PC is dominant, only 1.5m behind the combined total for all consoles except handhelds
48% of UK gamers are female
Read the full feature for more.

A new age of gaming has kicked off with games giants introducing their next gen consoles to the world.

To understand how games fit into people's everyday lives, the BBC carried out extensive research commissioned by BBC Audience Research, New Media, as part of a wider Creative Research & Development study.
BBC News At-a-glance: State of Play (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/05/state_of_play/html/1.stm)

[Lint of Death]

Actually, while BBC says that computer games are the most popular kind amongst people over 35, more people play console than anything else. Also, I like the Donkey Kong reference for their "Popular game types" graph.

[Balthasar]

Just glancing, some of those stats sound bizzare. How can 100% of kids 6-10 play video games?

[Xaerin]

Just glancing, some of those stats sound bizzare. How can 100% of kids 6-10 play video games?

It's only 100% of 6-10 year olds surveyed that is. Likely they have some kind of educational games at school.

That 48% female seems dubious and probably includes the one time they played Granny's Garden in primary school.

edit: ok, just read it and they define a gamer as anyone who even uses interactive tv so that would go some ways to explaining the figures.

[Ludoc]

According to the BBC someone who played solitaire six months ago is a gamer. This study = flawed.

[LilEvilFish]

I think you'll find that we do have a large population of girl gamers. 48% is probably quite accurate.

[edit] I could go on about how my sister loves the prince of persia and silent hill games or how a lass at uni used to kick my ass at counterstrike. There is even a visual impact, with more girls doing the games development courses available in this country, blah blah blaaaahh too early in the morning for this discussion *snip*

[Xaerin]

Lil, you've mentioned two girls, out of every female you met in the last six months could you honestly say that even 25% of them are gamers?

[Gel214th]

Wow.
The PC is Dominant? Welp, I guess everyone's played Solitaire at some point.

I don't think that means the study is flawed, perhaps instead the question should be people that have BOUGHT games to play on the PC/Console. That removes the pre-installed PC stuff from the equation?

And if 48% of UK gamers are girls, does this mean that the gaming culture in the UK is more evolved than what exists in the US? ;-P