Nearly three quarters of households in the US play video games. That's the claim of the Entertainment Software Association, the organizers of the E3 trade show. During E3 2011 this week the ESA released its annual report on the game industry, based on both survey numbers and sales numbers from the NPD Group. The report states that 72 percent of all US household play console or PC games. Furthermore the average age of a gamer is 37 years old. The report claims that just 18 percent of all gamers are under 18 years old. 53 percent are between 18 and 49 years old and 29 percent are 50 years old or older. 58 percent of gamers are male while 42 percent are female.
The survey also states that the average age of a person actually buying games is even older at 41 years of age. 33 percent of those surveyed claimed that playing games was their favorite entertainment activity. 55 percent of gamers play their game titles from their phone or other handheld device.
There is still a lot of debate on how games might affect children but according to the ESA's new report nine out of 10 parents play attention to the content of the games that their children play. The report also claims that 45 percent of parents play games with their kids at least one time a week. That's an increase from 36 percent in 2007.
The NPD Group's sales numbers of games in the US in 2010 state that the strategy genre sold the most units with 33.6 percent of the total number of games sold. Role playing games came in second at 20.3 percent and casual games came in third at 19.5 percent. The shooter game genre, despite having huge blockbuster games like Call of Duty Black Ops in 2010, came in as a distant fourth with just 9.7 percent of units sold in that genre.
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