Reuter’s shocking exclusive: Maybe adult gamers aren’t one-off freaks after all!
So the Nielsen/Netratings group has put out a study saying that one in three of your friends is some sort of pimply-faced, virgin troglodyte.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Video games aren’t just for the kids anymore. More than one in three U.S. adults who go online, or 37 percent, own a video game console and 16 percent own a portable gaming device, Nielsen//NetRatings said on Tuesday.
The majority of those console owners, 71 percent, are married, and 66 percent have at least one child in the household.
Well, maybe that’s a reading a bit into the findings, but it’s going to be a pretty sharp wake-up call to America’s newsrooms, who have cultivated the image of the adult gamer somewhere between Lt. Barclay and Comic Book Guy.
The Nielsen/NetRatings release is found here, but having read it over, I’m a little dismayed that there aren’t any breakdowns by gender in there, because naturally, the Reuter’s article assumes that the 1 in 3 is comprised solely of men:
Going into the current console war, analysts had predicted that adult gamers who grew up with the Japanese game maker’s products — dubbed “Nintendads” — would want to introduce their children to Nintendo games and be a key market for its new machine.
…Pardon me for being a little creeped out, but don’t they make it sound like smoking?
March 14th, 2007 at 10:35 am
ZOMG they’re breeding! Quick, someone dose all the Mountain Dew with birth control!
March 14th, 2007 at 12:11 pm
Nintendads? Worst. Demographic. Description. Ever. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the holodeck to escape reality.
March 14th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Uh, What about your 3 o’clock with Counselor Troi?
I too cringed at Nintendads. What an obvious grasp by a marketing company to come up with a buzzword.
March 14th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Hey! I’m one of those adults with consoles and a *gasp* DAUGHTER!! But I’m not a NINTENDAD… bah! Rotten sexists! Like moms don’t like video games? Puh-LEASE!! I even read webcomics and know a bit of L33t Sp34k, so ;p !
March 14th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Wait… if adult males with children are NINTENDADS, then can we adult females with minors be X-MOMS? (kinda like X-MEN w/ XBox)or Playmoms… or MomStations or… um…there’s gotta be something equally horrible they could name us…
March 14th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I would prefer to be known, checking my gaming systems over the years, as a Dreamcastaway, Odyssediot, and TI-994A-hole.
March 15th, 2007 at 8:39 am
[...] Real Life Maybe adult gamers aren’t one-off freaks after all! [...]
March 16th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
Hmmmm…. I feel the makings of a post…. but first, Tetris
March 22nd, 2007 at 11:59 am
[...] the second of Reuter’s continuing series of mind-numbingly obvious revelations about gaming culture is out… this one explains how videogames don’t pair-bond with the person who forks over [...]
April 16th, 2007 at 10:09 am
[...] Reuters. Fast on the heels of their breathtaking exposé revealing the existence of the adult gamer as a normal member of society and not at all as a virgin serial kil…, they again gave us hard-hitting videogame coverage with the shocking report that some people buy [...]