Look no further than the ESA's helpful annual pamphlet, the aptly tiltled "2009 Sales, Demographic and Usage Data: Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry." This unassuming booklet contains all the intriguing percentiles you could ever want for -- best of all, it's free for the taking in the E3 press room. At least, we think it was free. We didn't check. We might be thieves.
A breakdown of the facts and figures can be found after the jump.
Demographics
- 68 percent of American households play computer or video games.
- The average age of game players is 35 years old.
- 25 percent of game players are under 18 years of age, 49 percent are 18 to 49 and 26 percent are 50+ years old.
- 60 percent of game players are male. However, women age 18 or older represent 34 percent of the game-playing population -- much more than boys 17 or younger, who constitute 18 percent.
- The average age of the most frequent game buyer is 39 years old.
- 48 percent of game purchasers are female.
- 12 is the average number of years adult gamers have been playing video games.
- 62 percent of gamers play games with others in person. This is an increase from 59 percent in 2008 and from 56 percent in 2007.
- 42 percent of homes in America have a video game console.
- 92 percent of the time parents are present when games are purchased or rented.
- 63 percent of parents believe games are a positive part of their kids' lives.
- 83 percent of the time children receive their parents permission before purchasing or renting a game.
- Parents report monitoring the games their children play 94 percent of the time.
- 77 percent of parents believe that the parental controls available in modern game consoles are useful.
- 79 percent of parents place time limits on their kids' game playing.
- Action genre games represented 20 percent of total video game sales in 2008.
- Other Genres: Family Entertainment (19.3 percent), Sport Games (15.3 percent), and shooters (10.9 percent).
- 45 percent of games sold in 2008 were rated E. 12 percent were E10+, 27 percent were Teen and 16 percent were Mature.
- The number one selling computer game genre was Strategy (34.6 percent of total sales), followed by RPGs (19.6 percent) and Family Entertainment (17.1 percent).
- 57 percent of online game players are male.
- 23 percent of frequent gamers pay to play online games.
- The most commonly played genre of online games are Puzzle/Board/Game Show/Trivia/Card games.
- 11.7 billion dollars were spent on computer and video games in the U.S. in 2008.
- 298.2 million computer and video game units were sold in the U.S. in 2008.
- 43 percent of Americans have purchased or plan to purchase one or more games in 2009.
