Men call themselves gamers, but just as many women play games

The report showed that 48 percent of women and 50 percent of men play video games “on a computer, TV, game console, or portable device like a cellphone”, Maeve Duggan, a research analyst for the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project wrote in the report. What is more shocking though is that the percentage of women and men is nearly equal.

Old stereotypes still exist, the study found. almost 60 percent of Americans assumed that most people who play video games are men. This applies across the board; both men and women assume that most gamers are men, and fifteen percent of men considered themselves gamers compared to 6 percent of women. Among the disputes: whether men predominate in gaming; whether games portray women and minorities poorly; whether violent games promote aggressive behavior; and whether games encourage positive attributes such as problem-solving skills, communication and teamwork.

The survey also found out that gamers don’t pay much attention to negative portrayal of a game.

“We wanted to get a pretty broad read on who’s playing video games”, she said.

The public is closely split on some other major debates surrounding the content of games and their impact on users.

The discrepancy between who people assume plays video games and those who actually do is likely to do with gendered assumptions about gaming reinforced by marketing and culture.

The survey sampled 2,001 people in June and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percent.

What’s interesting is that the majority of people consider men to be gamers. 26 percent of those who play video games (and 35 percent of self-identified gamers) do not think that women are poorly portrayed in most games. 16 percent of the public is “unsure what to think” about the issue. The gamer was described by the researchers as a person who likes games and plays them often.

33% of those who play video games (and 46% of self-described gamers) do not think minorities are portrayed poorly in most games. They also asked the participants if they believe that there are lessons to be learned like team work and communication from the video games they played. Just 6% of those without gaming experience agree. That’s more than three times the percent of women in the age group (9 percent) who said the same. For instance, 26 percent of adults think most video games are a waste of time, while 24 percent do not think this is true.”. But older adults make up a substantial amount as well, with 58 percent of adults ages 30 to 49, 40 percent of adults ages 50 to 64, and 25 percent of adults ages 65 and up playing video games.