The daily gamer: Young, male, and playing games online

The daily gamer: Young, male, and playing games online

With the public debate about the potential positive and negative implications of game play as a backdrop, this report set out to unpack information about teens who play games frequently and who are thus exposed more often to the effects of video games. Who are these frequent gamers?³¹
More than three in ten (31%) teens say they play games on daily basis. Teens who game daily are largely boys—65% are male, 35% are female. These gamers also skew younger: 57% of those who play games every day are ages 12-14, and the remaining 43% of daily gamers are ages 15-17. Daily gamers are more likely to play on a portable gaming device (73% of daily gamers use a portable, compared with 57% of those who play less often), and are just as likely as other gamers to play on computers, consoles, or on a cell phone.

Daily gamers are more likely to report that they play games online and that they play games with other people over the internet. Daily gamers are more likely than other gamers (20% vs. 12%) to say that they "most often" play games with others they are connected to by the internet. In a related finding, daily gamers are also more likely to report playing games as a part of a guild or group (50% of daily gamers have done so, compared with 38% of less frequent players). Daily gamers are also slightly more likely to play games alone (87% vs. 79%) than those who game less often, but are equally as likely as any other gamer to play games with people in the same room. Daily gamers are more likely to play games with both people they first met in person and people they first met online than other gamers.