Profiling Strategic Game Players in the US

It is generally perceived that serious games are more interesting to people who are more educated. But is this perception really true? This paper tries to answer this question and some other related questions to provide a clearer picture of who plays strategic games in the US. Data were taken from a large dataset of one of the PEWs surveys. The American Trends Panel is a probability-based online panel which is carried out nationally using a sample of adults in the United States living in households. This survey was fielded for the Pew Research Center by Abt Associates from April ۴ to April ۱۸, ۲۰۱۷. Overall, ۴,۱۶۸ participants completed the Wave ۲۶ survey. The results found that in comparison with non-strategic gamers, strategic gamers are more likely to be men, more educated and wealthier, though the differences are small. It seems the old stereotypes about Sgamers and NSgamers should be re-evaluated, if we want to know how to use serious games for educational purposes.

Keywords:

Education , serious games , Socioeconomic Status , strategic games , survey