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Study: Virtually all teens play games

Pew research finds 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls aged 12-17 play games; racing and puzzle genres the most widely enjoyed.

Every year, the Entertainment Software Association updates its industry facts and figures to underline just how widespread gaming is in the United States. According to this year's update, 65 percent of American households play games.

That number will likely skyrocket in the coming years if a newly released Pew Internet Project report is anything to go by. Researchers recently surveyed 1,102 teenagers and found that 97 percent of those aged 12-17 played video games in some form, with 99 percent of boys responding affirmatively, compared to 94 percent of girls. There are a lot of frequent players as well, as half of the respondents said they'd played games in the past day.

As one might expect, the tastes of those 97 percent of teens who game are wide-ranging. Racing games had the most widespread popularity of any genre, with 74 percent of teens admitting to playing them. The puzzle genre was close behind with 72 percent, followed by sports (68 percent), action (67 percent), and adventure (66 percent).

Interestingly, Rhythm games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band were played by just 61 percent of respondents, only slightly higher than the strategy genre, which includes hardcore gaming staples like Starcraft and Command and Conquer. However, when asked for three favorite titles, the most commonly responded titles were (in order) Guitar Hero, Halo 3, Madden NFL, Solitaire, and Dance Dance Revolution.

The least popular genres listed were survival horror (32 percent), massively multiplayer online games (21 percent), and virtual worlds like Second Life or Habbo Hotel (10 percent).

Pew also surveyed parents of teens to gauge their attitudes toward gaming, and found that most parents were actually ambivalent on gaming's impact on their kids. Some 62 percent of respondents said games didn't affect their kids, with 19 percent believing them to be a positive influence, and 13 percent considering them a negative influence. Just 5 percent of parents said gaming could be either positive or negative, depending on the game in question.

106 Comments

  • Ted_Zanarukando

    Posted Sep 30, 2008 2:44 pm GMT

    Religion is a factor in negative parental attitudes toward gaming. Most parents who consider video games to have a negative influence on children are devoutly religious.

  • Shantmaster_K

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 8:48 am GMT

    agreed matz but u know its true lol

  • zombey1333

    Posted Sep 19, 2008 6:57 am GMT

    I just came back here to lol one more time at the pointlessness...and to make another pointless comment, but i'm sure it's somehow far more entertaining than the tripe found in the article.

  • sgt-hawkins

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:18 pm GMT

    thats a pretty small group... i wonder if it was in one city the article was tl;dr so i dont know

  • kratos_karmakar

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 9:35 pm GMT

    Ive been playing M rated games since i was 8...this doesnt come as a big surprise to me.

  • MatzeEdend

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 8:40 pm GMT

    I dunno... only 1,102 teens? that's not a very big focus group to try and make claims about the gaming habits of America... Not that it matters to me, I'm Canadian

  • aznballer91

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 8:09 pm GMT

    can't blame us. we all just want to have some fun.

  • trw534

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 7:04 pm GMT

    yea we do like to play video games

  • peeweeshift

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 6:16 pm GMT

    their term of gamer means anyone who plays games frequently or infrequently. My sis plays once in a while when we have visitors on winter break but otherwise doesn't touch it. She too has favourite games and is probably included as a gamer just because she plays games(even though it is way too infrequent).

  • doctorwang12

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 5:50 pm GMT

    the 99% boy is prolly true but 94% girls??? yea right

  • PumpkinBoogie

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:54 pm GMT

    C'mon now....why the hell are they telling us something that mostly any gamer (guy or girl) since the days of their youth (that is, if you've grew age-wise out of those yrs) already knew??

    Damn, I need to become a 'analyst'...... Must be nice....

  • darknferno12

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:37 pm GMT

    Like analyst predictions (Postdiction), video game studies need to be done differently from the others (IMO) It's like you don't factor in elevator music into music surveys or it would dominate. Like least popular games MMO, virtual worlds but are they the most played? 99%, 96% that can be true since there was no info if it was everyday or once a year. "13 percent considering them a negative influence" Wasn't there a survey done that parents are more worried about video games than alcohol, sex.

  • The_Dude1212

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:10 pm GMT

    Brilliant, Holmes. I never would have thought of that.

    Tell me, where *ever* did you learn to be a detective?

  • xatman911

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 3:02 pm GMT

    I am wondering what the remaining 3% of boys and 6% of girls do when they do not game...

  • Ripper_TV

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 2:16 pm GMT

    Nicely said, mikewalsh69, fully agreed.

  • glennvolio

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 1:51 pm GMT

    "how about this this one. Gamers are smart asses. glennvolio"

    Perhaps. Some are also immune to sarcasm.

  • sieg6529

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 1:37 pm GMT

    Are they counting Yahoo! games or something? I have serious doubs about the sampling of this study.

  • quietguy

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 1:14 pm GMT

    For one, I am skeptical about this report since it did not report a) length of time spent playing those games, b) specific regions it tested from, c) was non-specific on race (as absurd this sounds, even better shouldn't be on the checklist; it sometimes becomes a factor), & d) didn't elaborate on first person shooters.

  • Irishmandkg

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 1:08 pm GMT

    Does not suprise me that halo and guitar hero and all the other pop culutre games where the most played. People need to play some good games that aren't hyped and made the most popular thing even though they suck...halo.

  • sSubZerOo

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 12:36 pm GMT

    TwistOfFayt, I didn't realize you guys had electricty down there yet =P

  • TwistOfFayt

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:43 am GMT

    Ra-Devil Posted Sep 18, 2008 12:35 am PT "Some people call it the "Music City" State, I call it the racist hick retard (allegedly) state full of ignorant bastards, overly religious (zealous) biggots, and stupid "americans"." Wow. First, I doubt that anyone would call a state the "Music City", but maybe I'm just trying to think logically. Second, if you're going to talk about someone being ignorant, learn to spell the words "laid" and "bigot". People might take you a little more seriously. I've lived in Tennessee, and while I agree that the overall culture has yet to reach the 21st century, slamming everyone that lives there for being racist, retarded, etc. is being just as ignorant as you're accusing them of being.

    Settle down, take a deep breath, and enjoy the rest of your day, kiddo.

  • PerpetualBliss

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:39 am GMT

    This study found nothing surprising. I think they should do a study comparing playtimes of downloadable content versus regular titles. It might be interesting to find out what percentage of people actually play Xbox LIVE arcade games and downloadable Wii games more often than the typical store-bought games. It MIGHT be.

  • console-deity

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:21 am GMT

    The statistics are the most interesting part of this article. It is a little disturbing though that puzzle games and racing are the most popular as puzzles are boring and racing is pointless.

  • OfficialBed

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:18 am GMT

    gaming ftw

  • BangBangBoom

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:15 am GMT

    The scary thing is that just 5% of parents understand games.

  • moshxpit91

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 11:09 am GMT

    Study: almost all grass is green.
    99.9% of Americans today experience green grass over other colors. when asked to comment George bush replied "i dunno notin bought that but we should focus our efforts on WAR"
    i didn't see the point of this article. gamespot might as well have wrote something similar to what i did

  • OliveMaster

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:57 am GMT

    This makes me feel much better about playing games

  • jadefury27

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:55 am GMT

    WOW! I feel so enlightened by this finding! What next? This just in! u need air to live! pass this vital info on!

  • mikewalsh69

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:41 am GMT

    well i wish these "studies" did a better job in describing the people who play games. firstly 94% of girls do not play games. they don't. don't argue they do. they just dont. games don't appeal to girls. saying they played the wii for 5 minutes at their bf's house is not a game player. same as people playing minesweeper for a while shouldn't be considered. but they prob are. well there is my stupid gamer 2 cents.

  • Gamerzone23

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:32 am GMT

    O.o

  • Dantes_Monkey

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:27 am GMT

    in other news, bears do indeed deficate in the woods

  • cajunstrike

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:23 am GMT

    Agreed. Findings are not at all surprising.

  • PecansAreNuts

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 10:08 am GMT

    DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

  • DantheMan9856

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 9:33 am GMT

    how about this this one. Gamers are smart asses. glennvolio

  • Tebbit

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 9:30 am GMT

    Solitaire....

    WHAT HAVE WE BECOME

  • Drz4tobate

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 9:18 am GMT

    waaaaoohhh what happen to DBZ and SvR !! kids of does ages are crazy with wrestling and dragon ball z games!! ohhh well but yup the games in there are pretty famous..

  • rikhan_z

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 9:12 am GMT

    Solitaire? I'm pretty sure EVERYONE had a chance of playing that.

  • aura_enchanted

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 9:06 am GMT

    *yawn*.....wake me when sumthing interesting gets posted okay????

    *falls asleep on keyboard*

  • glennvolio

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 8:56 am GMT

    In other news, the sky is blue and water is wet.

    Did Ric Romero write this report...?

  • raahsnavj

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 8:06 am GMT

    Well, I hope they realize that they were serveying 12-17 year olds... which is to explain why only 32% of them played typical 'M' rated survival horror games.

    And did anyone ever question the Halo 3 numbers? I mean really between GH and Halo is there a worst game to play online and not get annoyed with?

  • zombey1333

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 8:00 am GMT

    I've gotta agree with most...when doing these kinds of surveys, games like Solitaire should probably not be considered as a video game. I'm not saying that it's not, because technically speaking it is. All that I am saying is that when most people think of video games they don't consider stuff like Solitaire and Mindsweeper to be part of that universe.

    It's almost safe to say that anyone who's been near a computer in the past decade has played a few games of Solitaire, but nothing else.

  • zombey1333

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 7:50 am GMT

    Quick, let's go survey this group of 1100 teens over here and get vastly different results! Honestly, who decides it's a good idea to throw away money on such small scale polls? Has anyone even bothered to look at how society's views are drastically different depending on what area of whatever country they reside in?

    Seriously. Yawn. This report is almost as pointless as the survey itself, it's just provided a mild bit of fodder for amusement and ranting. It would have been better if the article was pointing out the uselessness of such small scale surveys.

  • SpareJesus

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 7:31 am GMT

    This is what money is wasted on nowadays?

    THERE ARE CHILDREN STARVING IN AFRICA, DAMNIT.

  • Makhdoom82

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 7:26 am GMT

    And why shouldn't they ???

  • Makhdoom82

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 7:26 am GMT

    And why shouldn't they ???

  • jmartin1016

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 6:55 am GMT

    I'm suprised that 99% of boys play games. I wonder how the survey was administered. Because I would imagine that over 1% of boys that age don't even own a gaming console.

  • Avenger1324

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 5:59 am GMT

    wow - must have taken a genius to get these results LOL

  • black_ice23

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 5:20 am GMT

    well duh

  • Saphire_Kitsune

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 4:57 am GMT

    About the parent's half of the survey, anyone actually think about the "teens" getting in to their parent's emails (which is where these types of surveys are usually sent to) and taking the surveys for them?

  • Ojie_Bobaloke

    Posted Sep 18, 2008 3:50 am GMT

    My mother's husband is not able to control an analog stick to save his life, but this 50 year old man plays pinball on his computer in between looking up Nascar schedules and asking me how to turn the internet on (in which case I double-click the Firefox icon for him).

    I guess he's a gamer.

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