In a surprising twist of a stereotype, females by a slim margin make up a majority of online gamers, according to a study released yesterday by PC Data, Reston, VA.
Males may comprise the majority of overall gamers, at 55 percent, but 50.4 percent of online gamers are female, favoring gambling, card games and trivia games on their home computers.
Males are three-times as likely to go for first-person shooter games, at 38 percent, vs. 12 percent of females, according to the study titled, “Spotlight on Games: Categories and Hardware.” Males also favor sports and strategy games.
The study found 35 percent of PC gamers play more than five hours per week. More than 41.1 percent of gamers, both male and female, spend between one hour and five hours per week playing games. The remaining 24 percent are able to keep their computer gaming to less than one hour per week.
PC Data sourced the data from its offering of retail sales tracking, Internet audience measurement, software usage tracking, hardware configuration and custom survey.
