MooseMan3000

Alright, a few things wrong with that study.

One, it's voluntary response. There's no reliable data for exactly who's buying the games, because it's based on polls that are voluntary to complete.

Two, it's all the people who buy the games, not the people who play them. Most people under 18 aren't buying their own games. They're getting them from parents. Thus the age of the person actually playing the game isn't reflected in the statistics.

Three, the age groups are divided into skewed categories. "Under 18" includes people below 13, who can't legally respond to these polls without parental consent. Who's going to see the poll and run to their parents to get them to sign a waiver allowing them to participate in a poll? Also, the group "18-49" includes 3 more years than the under 18 group. It may not seem like a lot, but when one of the key areas is the area right between the two categories, those extra 3 years can make a lot of difference. And the average age of a gamer is also skewed too high. It only takes a few 70 year old gamers (yes, there are some) to bring that average from 25 to 35. They're called outliers, but this report makes no mention of accounting for them, so I can only assume they're included in all the stats.

Four, that female gamer number. The article in the original post was speaking of "real" video games (I'm not arguing over what makes a game real, just stating what I saw). Essentially games you can buy in a box at a video game store. You pointed out that 44% of online gamers are female. Also, according to the report, 56.8% of the games played online are "Puzzle/Board/Game Show/Trivia/Card." Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but everybody in the entire world has played Bejewelled. That hardly qualifies you as a "1337 ch1x0r g4m3r." But as far as the report is concerned, they're female gamers.

Five, I'm talking from experience. Yes, girls go to video game stores sometimes. Yes, every once in a while you get one who likes to play Unreal Tournament or Grand Theft Auto (fuck, I'm dating one, and it rules), but 9 out of 10 girls that go into that store are looking for that Sims expansion pack. The thing is, I'm not even joking.

Six, you all seem to be taking me wrong. I don't dislike female gamers. I think they're awesome. I wish there were more of them. My only point is that there are very few girls I would consider "gamers." You may think I'm an elitist for thinking so, but I don't believe that playing PopCap games makes you a gamer. That's my entire point. So stop trying to read some sexism, or whatever else, into my argument. It's not there.

Seven, statistics are easily manipulated. See points 1-5 above for a small portion of things that have been manipulated in this study to give numbers that look like they want them to.



That's how I was attempting to use the phrase, though perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Looking at the original article, she spoke of her WoW guild. She also spoke about how her guild was (without using the word specifically) an exception to the no girls exist on the intarweb rule. She said that because of specific actions, girls felt more comfortable joining that guild. That guild is the exception, the rule being that girls aren't comfortable joining guilds.

In the context I used it originally, the rule is that girls don't exist on the intarweb. The exceptions are the small, select areas where girls do exist. Bah. I wrote that at 8:17 AM. I wasn't hardly coherent as it is, let alone clear or concise. Sorry.