The TedX Bath team of researchers have decided to explore the world of Digital Gaming.

Digitial Gamers form a large majority of this age group with eighty four percent participating in activities of this type on a regular basis. Many of this percentage would consider themselves heavy gamers with eighty percent of them stating they should not spend so much time involved with activities of this nature. Watching television is still the most popular entertainment option for this category but is closely followed by gaming.

There are also more gamers who would consider themselves moderate players in this category with fourteen percent playing at least a few times a month. The number of female gamers has fallen also within this age group to just forty three percent which speculates that there are probably less games created for the various platforms which females find appealing. This category again sees consoles and PCs as the main gaming pastime for many people with seventy percent preferring consoles and sixty five percent opting for the PC platform.

Jane McGonigal – Can gaming make a better world

Although the PC may not be as popular the overall gaming time experienced was slightly higher than consoles with an average gaming session duration being two and a quarter hours compared with the consoles two hours. Simulation games also took a hit within this group falling behind racing games with just a two percent margin of difference. With the boom in advanced consoles such as the Xbox 360 and the Play station 3 PCs were finding it hard to compete due to the fact that consoles seem to be much easier to use and also eliminate the need for high end graphics cards which are required for many highly detailed games. Gaming User Profiles are a useful statistic in gauging age groups of gaming in general.

Games and Learning Videos of Interest:

The location gamers choose to play has again changed dramatically within this group with most game play taking place in the bedroom. Consoles contributed fifty nine percent of bedroom gaming activity with PCs having a forty nine percent use and the handhelds coming in with sixty four percent. The number of people playing consoles within their living room was fifty percent, PCs thirty three percent and handhelds forty five percent. Gaming on the move has not changed in virtually any way with sixty percent still opting to play handheld platforms on their travels.

Consoles only had three percent of the votes with PC gaming being  one percent. Another location that has not changed in any real way is friends and families houses where twenty five percent play consoles, twelve percent play handhelds and only nine percent play PC orientated games.  Gaming patterns at college are a new addition to this age group with fifteen percent playing handhelds, fourteen percent playing on the PC platform and two percent using a console at college. Another addition to this category is gaming at work, there were no consoles played at this location but sixteen percent of all asked said they played handheld games at work with nine percent stating they indeed played PC games in the workplace.

A great Educational Video from the BBC:

Most of the available technology was owned by this category with the thought being many of the people who fall in to this age group could independently afford to purchase items of this type without the need of parents. Mobile phones were owned by a huge ninety nine percent with ninety one percent of them owning a PC. Eighty eight percent owned a DVD player, seventy five percent owned a games console with sixty five percent owning and using a digital camera on frequent occasions. Thirty nine percent were in possession of an mp3 player and thirty one percent owned a handheld gaming device.

Digital Learning Resources:

1. UC Santa Barbara – Center for Digital Games Research

2. Malta Institute of Digital Gaming

3. The Center for Games & Music Research

4. Salford University – Digital Gaming Research – Gender

5. Brighton University – Digital Game Development

We asked all in this category what they thought there favorite PC function was and eighty five percent stated instant messaging while seventy four percent preferred storing digital photos on their PC. Seventy percent of people asked most popular function was to download music, watching a DVD saw a fifty six percent mark and forums and chat rooms counted a percentage of fifty three. Storing digital photos online was preferred by forty nine percent with downloading movies being thirty eight percent. Readers are welcome to complete an Independent questionnaire on question pro here.

People’s most desirable mobile phone functions within this category were found to be ninety nine percent preferred the text service, seventy percent loved their mobile phone games and MMS messaging was liked by forty percent. Visiting WAP sites counted thirty nine percent, downloading ring tones thirty seven percent, receiving text info twenty nine percent and finally twenty seven percent liked the act they could play music on their phones.

A TEDx Video from Daphne Bavelier – Your Brain on video games:

In regard to the frequency spent playing these various types of gaming platforms we can see that there is a much less volume of people who are inclined to play each and every day. Handheld devices have thirteen percent of gamers playing each day, seventeen percent playing three to six times per week eighteen percent playing one to three times per week with fifty two percent only playing several times a month with an average gaming session time of one hour. Console frequency saw seventeen percent playing each day, twenty five percent playing three to six times per week, fifteen percent playing one to three times per week with forty three percent gaming several times a month with an average gaming session time of two hours. PC gaming saw the highest result with twenty six percent playing each day, thirty six percent playing between three and six times a week, eighteen percent gamed one to three times per week and twenty percent playing several times per month with an average gaming session of two hours and twenty minutes.

Digital television games saw a large decline within this age group as only three percent would play each day, seven percent playing three to six times per week, twenty seven percent gamed one to three times per week with sixty three percent opting to play several times a month with an average gaming session of one hour twenty minutes.

Digital Gaming Resources of Interest:

1. Game Infographic – Published June 2019

2. Digital Banner Example – Published June 2019

3. Digital Product Hunt Example – Published 2019

4. Research Infographic – Published June 2019

The most popular gaming devices owned by the people surveyed saw virtually no change apart from the addition of various types of platform. Play station 3 consoles were still the most popular with seventy percent of people asked owning one, sixty eight percent owned a PC, forty one percent owned a mobile phone and thirty four percent were in possession of an Xbox. The Play station 2 was still owned by twenty four percent of gamers, the Nintendo GameCube and DS were owned by nineteen percent and eight percent respectively with the game boy being sixteen percent of gamers favorite pastime. Digital television came in with sixteen percent with the Nokia, Sega Dreamcast ( Now Discontinued) and Sony PSP being owned by six percent, four percent and three percent respectively.

The Team at TEDX Bath would very much like to hear from our readers on any Funny Stories regarding Gaming in general, with offline and online games, Flash, Funny, New, Methods or any other type of Gaming experience. Our website is protected by the Creative Commons Licence agreement.