A couple of weeks ago I made a new survey, two years after the original one called Happy to be a Gamer. It seemed appropriate to call the new one Still Happy to be a Gamer, as I feel many of you were with me two years ago, and still are with LadiesGamers now!
It seems that the world of video gaming is getting more and more accessible to everyone, with the big gaming companies entering the mobile market. And if you want a dedicated gaming device there’s always one that suits your needs.
Let’s see what the results of the survey were this time. And if things are indeed changing. I’m On a side note, as this is a small website, it isn’t exactly a large group that filled out the survey. So this isn’t in any way an indication of the population of gamers. Still, always fun to look at the facts and figures of our own readers!
Let’s look at the audience for LadiesGamers
This time, 67% of respondents is female, still a majority, but not the majority you would expect with a site-name like LadiesGamers! Two years ago, 72% where women, so the men are gaining territory over here.
The age group between 25 and 34 years old is in the vast majority, which is the same as two years ago. It’s followed by the gamers between 18 and 24, and between 35 and 44 years old.
It surprised me that less older gamers are represented. Two years ago, 13 gamers where in the same age category as I am ( 45-54 years) or older. Now, with me still just hanging onto the same age group, there are only 11. A slight drop, but still, I had expected the older gamers to find their way to gaming and this site, but it doesn’t show in the survey.
Just like before, nearly half of our readers hail from North America and the other half from Europe. There’s one reader from South America, 1 from Africa, 2 from Asia and 3 from Oceania.
Just how dedicated are we to playing video games?
First, let’s look at the number of days in a week that we try to squeeze some gaming in. As we’ve seen, most of our readers are adult, so free time is a luxury. Whether you work or are studying, there’s always something else to do that needs to be done.
46% of us plays every day of the week! We do take our gaming seriously, though that result is less then in the answers in 2016. Back then 58% played daily. Looking at myself I can only say that I try to squeeze a little bit of gaming fun into every day, which is easy nowadays with so many good games on the go.
So when we game, what devices do we use play our games on?
One person had none of the above devices, and 4 had all of them! The men had 6,3 devices on average, and the women slightly less, 5,3 devices on average.
In 2016, most readers had a 3 or 2DS, and that hasn’t changed. Since then, the Switch has made a smashing entrance and comes in second!  It surprised me how popular gaming on the desktop/laptop is.
You know how I’m passionate for the Switch as a handheld device, so I couldn’t resist asking how people use the device. As expected, a mix is most popular, though 26% of gamers do as I do, and only play handheld.
Are we playing more games on mobile?
Mobile gaming, preferably on the smartphone, is popular. I’m sure it brings people to playing video games who wouldn’t have done so without it being so readily available. With Nintendo and other big players entering a gaming market on mobile that used to be dominated by the likes of King and Supercell, it’s interesting to see if we play more on our smartphone or tablet.
So does all of this mean lots of gaming time is spent on mobile?
We only tend to play 10% or less of our gaming time on mobile! I can only guess that it’s all about quick gaming sessions while waiting for your doctors appointment or commuting, although Pocket Camp demands some lengthy sessions.
Somehow though, I don’t think that people who play a quick level of Candy Crush are into reading and chatting about games. Which means not many of these gamers are amongst the readers of LadiesGamers.
Does this mean we don’t have a lot of games on mobile?
More then half of our readers have more then 4 games on their mobile device. But I guess that isn’t any indication of the time spent gaming on mobile. I mean, looking at my own iPhone, it has quite some games on there.  I only play Animal Crossing Pocket Camp though, and the rest is waiting patiently until I decide to take another peek at it.
What kind of games do the readers of LadiesGamers enjoy most?
A couple of the questions in the survey were about what games we like playing most. Shooters, sports games and racing games weren’t all that popular, RPG, simulation and puzzle games were named most often.
I can practically hear you think that the number 3 in this graphic can’t be right: after all, puzzle games were named more often. But I also asked you that if you had to pick one, which one would it be. And those correspond with the number.
Most of you would chose RPG games if pressed to pick one. Adventure games came in second, and simulation games third. Which is pretty much the same result as two years ago! Still, most of you don’t stick to one choice but like a combination, like an adventure RPG or an RPG with sim elements.
The majority of you buy their games physical ( 70%) and only the minority go for digital download. But two years ago, 75% of you bought your games physical, so I think we can see a slight change. I bet the change isn’t going as fast as the gaming companies would want to, though!
We are still happy to be a Gamer!
I think I can conclude, based on these questions the readers of LadiesGamers answered, that we are all still very happy to be a Gamer. Most of us own more then one dedicated gaming device, and play games on mobile devices like phones and tablets too. It would seem the one doesn’t exclude the other, as not much of our gaming time is spent on mobile.
The preference for the sort of games played didn’t change, but this can be a matter of the content offered on the site, where most articles are about just those sort of games.
One question is left: I asked all of you if you wanted to give input to us, as we always love to hear from our readers. I was seriously moved by some of the comments you all made, so thank you all. In one of my next articles, I’ll give some feedback on that!
Thank you all for participating, and I hope you had as much with it as I had!