Bits on Gaming and the 50+

What’s Next Boomer Business Summit, 12 March 2013

By Mike Lee, AARP 1

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• Consumers spent $24.75 billion on video games, hardware and accessories in 2011.

• Purchases of digital content accounted for 31 percent of game sales in 2011, generating $7.3 billion in revenue.

• The average U.S. household owns at least one dedicated game console, PC or smartphone.

• The average game player is 30 years old and has been playing games for 12 years.

• The average age of the most frequent game purchaser is 35 years old.

• Forty-seven percent of all game players are women. In fact, women over the age of 18 represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (30 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent).

http://www.theesa.com/

General stats on gaming…

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More than 200 million people worldwide play casual games via the Internet. In 2010, the world wide connected casual games industry had revenues of nearly $6.00 billion on mobile, iPhone, social networks, PC, Mac and Xbox LIVE Arcade platforms. Casual games appeal to people of all ages, gender and nationalities. A majority of those who purchase casual games, however, are over 30 and female. In addition, casual games are usually played for a short period of time, from five minutes to 20 minutes though it's common for people to play game after game for hours.

Over 400 casual games are developed and launched on major web portals, thousands of iPhone and thousands of social games are launched every year. Typically, the Top 20 games each year generate the majority of the revenue.

http://casualgamesassociation.org/

General stats on casual gaming…

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http://games.aarp.org

Source: Adobe SiteCatalyst, 2012

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AARP Games are a significant source of traffic and engagement on the site, representing 62%62% of the site’s total page views.

Source: Adobe SiteCatalyst, 2012

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Although Games users account for only 13% of all users on the site, their engagement with Games is high.

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• Games users on average consume 64 Games pages in Games users on average consume 64 Games pages in a month. a month. • The average user on AARP.org consumes 13 pages in The average user on AARP.org consumes 13 pages in a month.a month.

Source: Adobe SiteCatalyst, 2012

40%

Consumption of Games on mobile devices has grown significantly, up 69% in 2012 to 2.2MM page views.

1.3MM

8New AARP.org Mobile Web Games

A plug for http://gamesforchange.org

New Study: Successful aging through digital games: Socioemotional differences between older adult gamers and Non-gamers

• Study to be published in the July 2013 edition of Computers in Human Behavior and available now online.

• Researchers recruited 140 adults, age 63+—with average age of 77—from senior centers, religious centers, and senior living apartments

• The survey revealed almost a third of the seniors played at least once a week, mostly casual games

• Just over 17 percent played every day

New Study: Successful aging through digital games: Socioemotional differences between older adult gamers and Non-gamers

• The seniors also took part in a battery of perceptual, cognitive, and affective tests. These included the widely used CES-D scale for depressive symptomatology

• Found that regular and occasional gamers to have significantly lower mean levels of negative affect

• Gaming grandparents reported significantly better instrumental/everyday functioning than non-gamers

http://news.ncsu.edu/releases/wms-allaire-social-2013/

mslee@aarp.orgTwitter: curiouslee

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