A new study led by Dmitri Williams, a
professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School
for Communication, revealed that in some cases every male geek
gamer's fantasy may be true -- some girls really are closet
gaming freaks.
The study, published in the Journal of
Communication, and available
here (PDF), examined the gaming habits of females and males
playing the popular Massively Multiplayer Online RPG (MMORPG)
EverQuest II.
The sample group was quite large, consisting of
responses from 7,000 logged in players. There were many
surprises in the results. First, the gaming wasn't dominated by
kids -- in fact the average age was 31. More interestingly
still, older gamers tended to spend more hours on the game per
week.
And female gamers spent, on average, far more hours than
their male counterparts. Top female players logged 57 hours a
week, while top male players only logged 51 hours a week. And
on average, girls logged 29 hours a week versus 25 hours for
males.
Age isn't the only thing women tend to lie about,
according to the survey. More women than men responded that
they lied to their friends and loved ones about how much time they
played.
Other dark elf slayers/professors and grad students
that participated in the study included Mia Consalvo, Scott Caplan,
and Nick Yee.
