97% Of Kids Play Video Games

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We linked this story yesterday in our Gaming News section but I wanted to give you guys the opportunity to discuss the topic. Do you guys believe that 97% of all kids play video games? While I want to say that number is a bit on the high side, I can’t think of a single kid that I know that doesn’t play video games.

Ninety-seven percent of young respondents play video games. That's 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls, with little difference in the percentages among various racial and ethnic groups and incomes. In fact, 7 percent of those surveyed said they didn't have a computer at home, but did have a game console, such as Sony Corp.'s PlayStation, Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox or Nintendo Co.'s Wii.
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I don't believe it. I just believe that its 97 percent of the people surveyed.

The rest of the statistics are interesting though, even if it is just a sample group.
 
Reading the full article a little closer it states the survey was of US teenagers aged 12-17 so with that group it's probably true. ;)
 
I don't swallow it.... that would include females also
 
I'm 22 and I barely know anyone who played video games when I was in school. I live in Sweden so that probably makes a huge difference and also in the pokemon-generation there seems to be a lot more gamers. Of course if they take any game in to account like playing snake or Tetris on a cell phone then maybe 90 % sounds reasonable, but I don't think more than 10-15 % of my fellow students played games granted this was before Guitar Hero and Wii became huge hits.
 
I'll bet that 99% of the children also watch TV. So what?
Like many surveys this one really lacks meaningful data.
 
97%? Thats bull if you ask me. When I was a bit younger, only some people in my school played video games.

Like stated before, it was most likely 97% of the people who surveyed.
 
Emission said:
You'd be surprised.
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I'm not, while I married a girl who likes games and my brother was engaged to a girl who ran lanparties... it's still a few and far in between.

For 97% to be accrate, I find that impossible.
 
It could be possible but 97% seems a bit high. Take me for example I love playing games on my PC and rarely on consoles. But I am the exact opposite of my friends. I have 4 best friends and we allways do stuff together but I am the only one that really plays and enjoys gaming. Granted they played a few games here and there but they dont hold much interest in gaming. Not even when we were young they never talked about gaming much. We did other things like riding bikes on streets, playing football running around etc. I only got into gaming because my brother in law had Duke Nukem 3s installed on his banger PC and that game was the trigger!

Unlike me whenever im bored I fire up BF2 or Crysis or whatever game I feel like playing and i can play it for hours without getting bored, but my mates would rather browse car websites or read the news etc. Gaming wouldnt be what they would think of. I mean I even tried to get a couple of them to play Jedi Knight: Outcast with me, one started but stopped playing after like 2 days didnt find any interest in it.

So that shows that a lot of kids might game but I highly doubt 97% of them game and game regularly that is. But then again in this time and age when companies like Microsoft, Sony and other companies are ramming Gaming down kids throats not suprising kids would rather sit at home and play GTA4 and eat nachos and chips and fizzy drinks all day long and get fat and lazy with health problems. Man where are the days when kids used to go out and do activities. Anyway cant wait for GTA 4 to be released on PC :D havent played it yet!
 
... And 96% of those kids have a headset and play an online multiplayer FPS :rolleyes:
 
What do they define as "play videogames", though? Do they have to own a gaming console or computer or does it still count if they borrow their dad's or friends'? How often do they have to play videogames for it to count? Does it count if they have a cellphone and play Tron on it?

When I was 12 back in 1996, I would have estimated that maybe 75% of my friends played some form of video/computer game nearly every day. Everyone I knew played a videogame at least several times a month. While online gaming wasn't very common, we would often get together and have tournaments using some racing or beat'em up game, usually on my Amiga because the games were much better than those on the Nintendo's, Sega's or PC's, and many more offered split-screen and multiplayer support. On the other hand, the amount of girl gamers back then must have been extremely small, maybe 10% or less.

99% of boys sounds perfectly realistic to me, but 94% of girls sounds a little high..But I dunno..maybe times have changed and there are nearly as many girl gamers as there are guy gamers now...
 
"...Ninety-seven percent of young respondents play video games...."

That does not mean "97% of All young people"... even in the USA. And it doesn't really qualify what they mean by "play video games". Does it mean they've played a video game, at least one time? Or does it mean, they have a PC / console? Or does it mean they know other young people who have a console and they play with them?

If you dig into the related articles you discover that it was a "survey of 1,102 teenagers aged 12-17" - and the primary conclusion they draw is that young people like "computer and video games". But I would hardly consider 1,102 "respondents" a representative sample. And since this study was performed by an Internet focused research group. It would only get input from young people who at least have Internet access.

The two things they were also able to conclude is that most young people who play video games aren't maladjusted "loners". And that Parents should pay attention to what their children are playing (it seems that 1/3 of those who responded said they played games rated for Adults). Still it seems to me like it only takes One Maladjusted Kid playing GTA4 hours on end, to destroy the image of all these other young people. Which IMHO is really sad...
 
Ockie said:
lol, the irony :D
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Hey man im not a kid anymore im an oldy now. :D And trust me I did my fare share of activities when I was young infact I used to go out straight after school and come back at dark during summer days and in the UK it gets dark around 9.30pm. Those were the good old days.

Compare that to my younger brother who sits at home all day playing Drakes fortune and Pro Evo 2008 on his PS3. How things have changed. Maybe in the future there will be virtual reality headsets which people will put on as soon as they wake up and live out their daily lives in a virtual world while still in bed! WOW the matrix does not sound so far fetched now does it?:eek:
 
Those 7% of kids that didn't have computers are seriously missing out on REAL GAMING lol
 
Simpson5774 said:
The other 3 percent must be sheltered children, and their parents must be dicks.
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that's a new one for me. Usually I hear playing videogames=sheltered life. Here's an example that somehow videogames create a gregarious lifestyle. What an odd twist.
 
Video games are only a quarter at the local Chucky Cheese, Mall, etc... Yes 97% of kids play Video games, no doubt in my head.
 
Dreaz said:
that's a new one for me. Usually I hear playing videogames=sheltered life. Here's an example that somehow videogames create a gregarious lifestyle. What an odd twist.
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How does playing games equate to living a sheltered life? Being sheltered would imply that you are not being allowed to experience the world around you. Watching tv, playing games, playing with friends, playing sports,.... these are not things that a sheltered kid would get to do. Thet would get home from school to a house with no tv, do their homework, then be forced to read or something like that without being able to go play with friends only to go to school and repeat this day after day after day. That is being sheltered. Now playing games can make you not have much of a life and be a hermit but that isn't the same as being sheltered. There is a difference between not wanting to go play with friends or go outside, and not being allowed to go outside. I don't eat some food because I don't like it, people in some 3rd world countries on the other hand don't eat it because they don't have food. There is a big difference between me and them even though in the end neither of us is eating that particle food.
 
I don't see why this is hard for some to believe. Just look at how many consoles and handhelds have been sold in this country. It's about 70 million this generation, then there are also last generation machines. There's more game machines in this country than children. Then add computers in there...
 
Old people with time should learn from the kids they're missing out.
 
Times have change, we cannot compare to our own childhood.

Now computer is a necessity, I have some relatives who are relatively poor but also have a old but working computer at home, and yes their kids play those old 2-D games but still, its a form of video game

97% is hardly surprising at all, considering that they are young kids and teens, any one of them who have a computer would bound to play some form of video games. But going to middle class and above, consoles and handheld are certainly very affordable.
 
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