I came across this intriguing infographic over at GameSpy.com. Its goal is to enlighten people as to who’s actually playing Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) video games these days. In particular… Everquest II.
We’re all familiar with the prevailing gamer stereotypes, one of the most enduring and pernicious of which casts the MMO player as a pasty, perpetually-adolescent slob. A recent study published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication could go a long way toward dispelling some of the more pervasive of these stereotypes.
The aforementioned study, “Who plays, how much, and why? Debunking the stereotypical gamer profile,”…got an unprecedented look into the nature of MMO players — specifically, 7,000 of the ones who play EverQuest II.
The infographic above is the first attempt to showcase some of their interesting findings. A couple things I find interesting:
- Depression — EverQuest players are more depressed than the average American. What came first, the depression or the incessant gaming?
- Obesity — EverQuest players are less obese than the average American. I would have thought sitting around playing online games instead of being physically active would have the opposite effect.
- Average Age — The Majority of players are 30-39 years old? Really? Wow.
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This post filed in the following categories:
- Data Mining - Data mining is the process of extracting hidden patterns from data typically using sophisticated data search capabilities and statistical algorithms.
- Infographic - Information graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge.
- Statistics - Statistics is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data.
- Visualization - Visualization is any technique for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message.
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now that its done i wonder if its good enough to join the list !"
He did one small mistake, unfortunately everyone does mistakes."
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Majority of players are 30-39? I hate to be a nag, but a majority is >50%. You are thinking of plurality (or largest minority).
A correct statement would be that the majority of the players are over 30. That certainly is surprising.
You’re right Bill. good catch.
Thanks for checking out the blog
The fact that Everquest 2 players are this old can be explained by the fact that they are hardcore players that have started to play MMORPG with Everquest 1.
Young players play at World Of Warcraft or other less ‘hardcore’ games.
As in all RPGs, players assume the role of a fictional character (often in a fantasy world), and take control over many of that character's actions. MMORPGs are distinguished from single-player or small multi-player CRPGs by the number of players, and by the game's persistent world, usually hosted by the game's publisher, which continues to exist and evolve while the player is away from the game.
Adam
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As a sometime player of EQ2, one other thing that did surprise me was the number of armed-forces guys who play in between tours. Maybe that explains the correlation with some of the other findings too?