CEA: More Adults than Teens Play Video Game

A study from the Consumer Electronics Association finds adults spend more time playing video games than teens. (Maybe they have longer attention spans?)

A new survey from the Consumer Electronics Association finds that roughly one third of adult gamers spend 10 or more hours per week playing console or PC-based games. Sound about right? Well, the adults are way ahead of teens: only 11 percent of teens spend an equivalent amount of time on video games.

The study did find adults aren’t as keen on portable gaming as teens: only 25 percent of adult gamers who own a portable gaming device reported having used it in the last six months, compared to 77 percent of teens. Teens are also more likely to engage in online and multiplayer gaming: teenage girls are particularly likely to play multiplayer games while teenage boys are more likely to game online. Some 64 percent of adults usually play console games by themselves.

Among teens, the survey also found that 12- to 14-year olds spend more time with video games than 15- to 17-year olds; CEA’s Senior Manager of Industry Analysis Steve Koenig speculated: “Older teens simply may not have the free time for extra hours of gaming or they could be gaming on wireless handsets since 81 percent of teens own or use a wireless phone.”

The CEA survey also found that adult gamers prefer PCs to console platforms, while teens spend more time with console games. In households with both PC and console games, 58 percent considered the console to be their primary gaming platform. The survey also suggests that female gamers outnumber male gamers in the 25-34 age range, perhaps owing to the popularity of free online games among female respondents.

The survey was administered to 1,767 U.S videogame households via the Web in mid-December, 2005.