The Crazy Stats on “Gamers”
How many people play video games everyday? How many “Gamers” are there around the world? Why should I care? The answers may surprise you…
Ok, so… Let me catch my breath. I feel like Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott must have felt when they reached Samuel Adams and Co.
The Gamers are coming! The Gamers are HERE! This time, i think it’s worse than the British crossing the Atlantic to shut down a rebellion. Far worse.
I just read an article with so many mind-blowing facts in it my mind exploded with questions, ideas, fears and wonder. It’s about video games. How many people are “gamers”, the average age, and what parents have to say about it.
2.5 BILLION. Let that number sink in for a min. That’s how many people are gamers around the world. That’s a third of the population of the entire world!
65% of American adults claim to play video games on a daily basis. That’s 3 out of every 5 or roughly 215 MILLION people! Play. Video games. Every day.
The average “gamer” is 34, owns a house and has kids. As a matter of fact, 72% of “gamers” are 18 or older. Most of them are male, but not by much at a 55/45 split. Even so, men are three times more likely to purchase a game than a woman because women tend to play games more on their phone.
Here’s the kicker… people with a yearly income higher than $90K are less likely to buy games…. Probably because they are too busy.
The stat that brought it home for me was… 64% of US households own a device that they use to play video games on. Yep. Guilty as charged. I have a PS3.
That’s the one that got me. But, and this might surprise a lot of you, i haven’t even used it (and i mean use it like a heroin addict means use it) in 3 years. I actually haven’t even turned it on. Not once. In 3 years. Let me explain…
I use to smoke A LOT of weed and, play video games or watch movies or whatever. Mostly play video games. I mean, who wants to just watch a movie or sports or whatever when you can play in a movie or sport or whatever… amirite?
When i was growing up i played video games a lot (we’ll get to “why” in a min) and i finally stopped right before i moved out to California. Soon enough i got bored, wasn’t happy with the way my life was going and i turned back to smoking weed and playing video games. But, it just wasn’t the same.
After a couple of months of trying to slip back into that particular comfort zone i had a moment that changed my perspective….
I was high as a kite and i was playing the newest Grand Theft Auto (5, i think). In this game you can do soooo much. I won’t explain the whole thing to those uninitiated to GTA, but i will say this. There comes a point in this game, no matter who you are, that you feel the urge to “dress up” your character and “hook them up” with the best cars, houses, clothes and anything/everything else. This particular night i had that thought. So, i went and got my character one of the best houses in the game, started going around and getting the best cars and saving them to that house. Then, as i had the character in edit mode so i could pick out better clothes, i decided it was a good time to finally eat dinner. As i began to make the most plain and easy sandwich i could (even though I’ve worked as a professional chef) i started thinking about what i would choose for clothes.
Then, it hit me…WHAT AM I DOING?
It dawned on me… why am i spending all this time trying to make this fictional characters life amazing and not MY ACTUAL life.
Sitting down to eat a meat,cheese and bread sandwich it finally sunk in. What a waste of time! Here i was, sitting by myself in my living room (in an apt i hated). With no friends. No money. No girlfriend or wife. A job that barely paid my bills and putting all my free time and effort into making some fictional characters life amazing instead of my own. I’m not sure if i made it through the whole sandwich before i shut the game off. I do know that i haven’t played it since.
I did continue to play sports games for about another month though, but it just wasn’t the same. The genie was outta the box, the salt had lost it’s savor and i needed more. What happened next was a difficult time in my life. It wasn’t because i was suffering from a with drawl of video games. It was because instead of smoking weed, playing video games and ignoring my problems i decided to face them. I knew i needed help and i turned to the thing i had shoved aside for so long… The Truth. I began to humble myself and allow God (with all His morality, virtue and Love) to be in my life again. I haven’t regretted it one bit since.
The first change i made was to stop playing video games. Smoking weed came a month or so after — on April 20th 2017–420. When i did stop putting so much time and energy into video games i found i had more time to do other things. Things like painting pictures, reading, writing, photography, creating movies, and much more.
Eventually, after i stopped smoking weed too, my life took on a whole new meaning and i set out towards the east coast again. This time more productive and with purpose.
I ended up volunteering for Samaritan’s Purse to help clean up the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. It was a good experience i never would have had if i was still sitting on that couch, high as a kite, playing Grand Theft Auto.
Using that perspective… what my life would be like if i was still playing video games… i think about what other peoples lives would be like if they were stuck in that rut.
People like Leonardo Da Vinci. What if he was as glued to a chessboard as gamers are to their devices? How about Antonio Vivaldi? Or Nikola Tesla?
What about Michael Jordan? Would M.J. be the greatest basketball player of all time if he played 30–40 hours of video games a week instead of working on his jump shot?
Maybe. Maybe they all would have been better off. Do you think so? At least 70% of parents say video games have a positive influence on their child’s life. Having been a “gamer” i can say I’d agree with that, but only partially. And I don’t think any of those people would have gotten to where they did if they had spent so much time playing video games.
“Yep. That’s a 3–4 defense. They are expecting a run. Yep, there it goes. Stopped him at the line of scrimmage.”
I grew up in the North Eastern U. S. where the winters are cold and there are times when being outdoors is just not possible. Even though I’ve always liked most winter sports, there comes a time where being outside in 20 below zero just isn’t worth it. This is where video games come into play.
They are a great facilitator to expand your horizons when your stuck in the house on a bone chillingly cold winter day. Not only that, but i also found that i learned a lot from video games. I like sports and so naturally I’ve played a lot of Madden NFL in my day. From playing the game so much i got to where i could read a defense in a real game on television and tell you what was going to happen. So yea, i learned a lot. But so what? What good did that do me? Ok, fair enough, i could have used that knowledge somehow, but how many people do? How many people are learning things from video games and putting that knowledge to good use?
Here is a good time to circle back to those mind blowing stats. The average gamer is… male, makes less than 90K, is 34 years old, owns a house, has kids and plays everyday.
I’m not sure that demographic is using video games to learn how to do something that’s going to better their life, much less yours or anyone else’s.
Here’s the way i look at it… all the time i spent playing video games as a kid…. what if i had played guitar instead? What if i had put all that time and effort into learning how to paint or write or something… anything besides video games! How good would i be at playing guitar? Could i have been the next Jimi Hendrix? (probably not, but humor me will ya?) Could i have been the next Da Vinci? Who knows?
Now, i strive to put my efforts into something worthwhile. Something that, when i finish, i can get a lasting sense of accomplishment rather than a fleeting glimpse at satisfaction.
Think about it this way… If Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat and social media are so programmed to dole out dopamine hits and therefore addictive… how much more so are video games? When you finally get off that dopamine ride of thumb ups, hearts, hashtags, likes and pokes what are you left with? After those three (or more) hours of getting high off social media widgets, gadgets and dohickies… what do you have to show for it? After binge-watching every show on Netflix… what’s the thing you have to show for it? Is there some award i don’t know about?
It’s been said that it takes 10,000 hours to master something. If you play/watch T.V. for 5 hours a day, every day, for a year that’s… 1,680 hours a year. That’s just about 6 years to be able to “master” something… And how many of us only watch 5 hours a day? 6 years seems like a long time when your 16 but it ain’t when your 60. Are you gonna look back when your 60 and say….
Remember that time we were sitting around playing video games… what a crazy night that was. I remember it like it was yesterday…
No. Probably because you’ll still be sitting on the couch playing video games.
I have one last thing to say from my self-righteous (because i use to too) soap box (medium articles barely anyone reads)… for now. What if all the doers like Tesla, Da Vinci, Jordan, Musk etc start getting sucked into video games instead of actually doing anything? What if the next Steph Curry or Ernest Hemingway were too caught up in video games to be bothered living in the actual world?
Where are we headed? I’ll get into some ideas about that later…
For now i would like to end this, as i always do, with a big-huge-enormous-monumental THANK YOU FOR READING… not just this post or article. Just. Thank You for still reading. Thank You for not being glued to a game somewhere trying to earn magic beans to pay for the next leopard printed blue furry hat for your character. Thank You for being part of the human race and not on some device wishing you were a dwarf or elf or wizard or something. Oh, and of coarse, thank you for reading this too. We’re all in this together. Let’s do better. Here. Not in some fantasy world.
Seriously though, thanks for reading and as always, May God Bless You.
send me an email if ya want… thejarredshow@gmail.com
I am currently working on my new publication and i would love to feature some writers other than myself. Anything you got just send me an email and i’ll take a look at it and possibly add you as a writer.
There are many other things I’m working on… stay tuned for more coming soon…
