Gamers more educated than the people who mock them.

[wpirobotbuilder]

Do you honestly believe that half the "gamers" are female?

I certainly didn't say that. I was pointing out that you aren't qualified to make that determination. Neither am I, for that matter.

[Helios79]

I love reading the comments regarding how the Internet made said posters' smarter. Alrighty then, let's put these people on Jeopardy and see how well they do. Oh wait, you can't get access to a search engine or Wikipedia while being on the show. Ever since the Internet came along I have seen Gen Y and the generation after suffer from the following:

 

1. Lack of punctuation, grammar, and spelling.

2. Lack of thinking for solutions (laziness) as the Internet seems to provide the answer to everything (I've seen a lot of false crap being put online in the past 21 years)

3. Thinking that the Internet can replace a proper education. Sorry, that's complete FUD. "I got my certification or degree on the Internet" does not fly with a lot of employers.

4. Thinking that being in a CS clan makes them part of a master race. Yeah, keep riding that Ferris wheel till your 45. By then you would have only obtained one skill that can't be applied to any real world job.

[Heisenbleurgh]

I knew spending 4 years playing video games would be a better investment of my time than going to college. Take that, non-gamer parents!

[wpirobotbuilder]

2. Lack of thinking for solutions (laziness) as the Internet seems to provide the answer to everything (I've seen a lot of false crap being put online in the past 21 years)

3. Thinking that the Internet can replace a proper education. Sorry, that's complete FUD. "I got my certification or degree on the Internet" does not fly with a lot of employers.

In fairness, reusing known good solutions is a good way to save time. You just have to know that they are good.

 

The Internet can definitely augment an education, given proper sources (see Crash Course, Khan Academy, etc.)

[Heisenbleurgh]

ps: to put it in perspective, "more than 1000 gamers" (let's be nice and give them 1,500) represents 0.00002% of Steam active users and that's just a part of PC gaming.

[LAwLz]

I certainly didn't say that. I was pointing out that you aren't qualified to make that determination. Neither am I, for that matter.

What qualification would you need to make such a statement then?

I don't have to have a PhD in "analyzing the color of the sky" to tell that it appears to be blue.

 

Anyone can make the observation that far less than 48% of "gamers" are female. You need to use bullshit definitions like "anyone who has played a game in the last 60 days is a gamer" to get that kind of number.

I dislike the word "gamer" in general and everyone has their own definition of it, but I am pretty sure most people have more strict definitions than that.

The study is very flawed.

[Askew]

Like kids who mock clever kids at school then in later life deliver their pizzas to the suburbs.

[Misanthrope]

Here's something for you: "Educated" does not means "Smarter". It's actually more of a socio-economical measure more than anything, some of the smartest people you will ever encounter are actually indigenous and highly marginalized people in the outskirts of civilization that when given proper tools develop incredible technology and advancements (i.e. How many times have you seen African mid-schoolers developing their own radios, power generators, etc.) 

So yeah it truly is a case of a huge duh: Rich people that can afford luxuries like games have more education.

[Xorbot]

And they surveyed "more than 1000 people" which means something like 1100 probably. Not enough for a proper study.

Oh and sorry, but 48% of "gamers" are not female. You might say that "ohh but there are more female gamers than you think" and you might be correct, but not each second person I meet while playing a game is a female. It's more like 1/10 or 1/20 (in some games the number is even lower).

The survey was really flawed and should not be taken as fact.

 

Moms playing bingo or Farmville on Facebook.  How many moms do you meet?

[EChondo]

Aside from the fact that the author is stating that a "gamer" is someone who has played a game in the last 60 days...
 
This study was commissioned by Twitch, so I would assume that they are actually surveying real gamers, not mobile users.
 
Also, almost a 50vs50 for gender? Really? I know a lot of women that play mobile games, but would NEVER touch a console. So, they are counted?
 
This study is seriously flawed.
 

I love reading the comments regarding how the Internet made said posters' smarter. Alrighty then, let's put these people on Jeopardy and see how well they do. Oh wait, you can't get access to a search engine or Wikipedia while being on the show. Ever since the Internet came along I have seen Gen Y and the generation after suffer from the following:
 
1. Lack of punctuation, grammar, and spelling.
2. Lack of thinking for solutions (laziness) as the Internet seems to provide the answer to everything (I've seen a lot of false crap being put online in the past 21 years)
3. Thinking that the Internet can replace a proper education. Sorry, that's complete FUD. "I got my certification or degree on the Internet" does not fly with a lot of employers.
4. Thinking that being in a CS clan makes them part of a master race. Yeah, keep riding that Ferris wheel till your 45. By then you would have only obtained one skill that can't be applied to any real world job.

 

1. I know A LOT of people that can't use proper spelling, grammar and/or punctuation. It is seen a lot when working for a school district and having to deal with TEACHERS not using the correct "their" and "your". This is not a problem with solely younger generations.

2. Everyone is "lazy" then by your definition. What do you do when you run into a problem you've never seen before? Try and fix it yourself, or Google it? Because I bet 99% of the time you Google something you have no idea about, unless you're some jack of all trades type of character.

3. I am self taught solely using the Internet for my resources. It can, and has, replaced a proper education because education today is absolute crap. I have been studying, building, and fixing computers for the past 4 years and I recently got hired for a IT position in my school district back in October. I have no certifications(plan to get my A+ soon) or degree, but I got the job because of my experience. Experience is what many employers value over education, go and ask any recent college graduate what their major was and what job they currently have and what their employer asked them about.

4. This I can agree with you, but there are people who can and do make a living by playing video games. They are the minority, but if you can make it happen, then go for it, but you should always have a backup plan, which many pro players do. A lot of retired pro players go on to do project management or even go back and work for MLG as news casters and PR representatives. You learn a lot by playing videos games such as teamwork, communication, and planning, you learn even more advanced things by playing in a professional setting.

 

Just because YOU have different experiences doesn't make you 100% correct.

[ShogunZ]

48% of gamers is female? The definition of gamers in this study is just not right at all. Gaming on a device in the last 60 days is about half the population with smartphones yeah.

[Helios79]

Aside from the fact that the author is stating that a "gamer" is someone who has played a game in the last 60 days...

 

This study was commissioned by Twitch, so I would assume that they are actually surveying real gamers, not mobile users.

 

Also, almost a 50vs50 for gender? Really? I know a lot of women that play mobile games, but would NEVER touch a console. So, they are counted?

 

This study is seriously flawed.

 

 

1. I know A LOT of people that can't use proper spelling, grammar and/or punctuation. It is seen a lot when working for a school district and having to deal with TEACHERS not using the correct "their" and "your". This is not a problem with solely younger generations.

2. Everyone is "lazy" then by your definition. What do you do when you run into a problem you've never seen before? Try and fix it yourself, or Google it? Because I bet 99% of the time you Google something you have no idea about, unless you're some jack of all trades type of character.

3. I am self taught solely using the Internet for my resources. It can, and has, replaced a proper education because education today is absolute crap. I have been studying, building, and fixing computers for the past 4 years and I recently got hired for a IT position in my school district back in October. I have no certifications(plan to get my A+ soon) or degree, but I got the job because of my experience. Experience is what many employers value over education, go and ask any recent college graduate what their major was and what job they currently have and what their employer asked them about.

4. This I can agree with you, but there are people who can and do make a living by playing video games. They are the minority, but if you can make it happen, then go for it, but you should always have a backup plan, which many pro players do. A lot of retired pro players go on to do project management or even go back and work for MLG as news casters and PR representatives. You learn a lot by playing videos games such as teamwork, communication, and planning, you learn even more advanced things by playing in a professional setting.

 

Just because YOU have different experiences doesn't make you 100% correct.

 

1. I see it a lot more with the younger generations, than others. Sure, my step-father can't spell for crap either, but at least he is willing to correct himself when need be.

2. Over 21 years in this industry, I guess I would be a jack of all trades. And for 10 years, I had to figure out things on my own. That's the beautiful part of having a brain, being able to put it to use. Using the Internet to solve real world issues is merely cheating at real life. Guess you wouldn't understand that yet, seeing that you are barely old enough to pay bills. /rant.

3. Hate to break it to you, but I got the exact same job as you when I was 18. Schools are willing to take on students to TEACH them things, which helps further their experience. 4 years of break fix and building PC's doesn't mean jack squat.

4. Yeah, yeah, retired gamer goes on to be a podcaster. Like that really pays the bills. The only thing that you learn by playing games is how to tea-bag, bully, and troll on others. So don't make up that excuse to justify the means.

[Caincard]

I see gamers as being more likely to enter fields like electrical engineering, dev work, and coding, all necessary for the future of the digital age. Especially where some robotics and computer based systems are taking over menial jobs. So really it can me argued that gamers are smarter.

[Misanthrope]

Also, almost a 50vs50 for gender? Really? I know a lot of women that play mobile games, but would NEVER touch a console. So, they are counted?

 

Observational bias: you don't know "all of the women" or even a statistically significant amount.

[ViruZ_HUN]

some ppl call me hacker in school because I can build PCs. But building PCs have nothing to do with programming

 

So yes Non-gamers have less intelligence.

[EChondo]

1. I see it a lot more with the younger generations, than others. Sure, my step-father can't spell for crap either, but at least he is willing to correct himself when need be.

2. Over 21 years in this industry, I guess I would be a jack of all trades. And for 10 years, I had to figure out things on my own. That's the beautiful part of having a brain, being able to put it to use. Using the Internet to solve real world issues is merely cheating at real life. Guess you wouldn't understand that yet, seeing that you are barely old enough to pay bills. /rant.

3. Hate to break it to you, but I got the exact same job as you when I was 18. Schools are willing to take on students to TEACH them things, which helps further their experience. 4 years of break fix and building PC's doesn't mean jack squat.

4. Yeah, yeah, retired gamer goes on to be a podcaster. Like that really pays the bills. The only thing that you learn by playing games is how to tea-bag, bully, and troll on others. So don't make up that excuse to justify the means.

 

1. And I see it a lot more in older generations.

2. Cool, good for you. And using resources available to me is cheating? Yeah sure.

3. And I hate to break it to you, but they aren't teaching me anything. I go to school sites, work on work orders, and do networking by myself. It's a full time position, so no, you didn't have the exact same job as me.

4. Yeah, it does pay bills. But like I said, it's a minority, and you should have a backup plan if it fails. And I'm not making up excuses because they are fact.

 

If you're too ignorant to see what is really happening, then that's on you. I'll just keep living in the real world.

 

 

Observational bias: you don't know "all of the women" or even a statistically significant amount.

Very true, but I think many of us can agree that for real gamers(non-mobile), it isn't a 50/50. It's more 20/80, maybe 30/70, but it's definitely not 50/50. This is the same percentages we see in other industries like engineering and programming. Women do not want these kinds of jobs or hobbies, but there are a few that do.

 

Honestly, I'd love to see a perfect 50/50 split, but that isn't the case.

[Fred Castellum]

This is a perfect example of don't believe everything you hear/read.

[wpirobotbuilder]

What qualification would you need to make such a statement then?

I don't have to have a PhD in "analyzing the color of the sky" to tell that it appears to be blue.

 

Anyone can make the observation that far less than 48% of "gamers" are female. You need to use bullshit definitions like "anyone who has played a game in the last 60 days is a gamer" to get that kind of number.

I dislike the word "gamer" in general and everyone has their own definition of it, but I am pretty sure most people have more strict definitions than that.

The study is very flawed.

It's nothing to do with academic qualifications, and everything to do with the information at hand. You would need data on a set of subjects that number in the hundreds of thousands, then you would need to check variables such as subject distribution (to make sure your selected subjects were not from a limited geographic area, a limited set of gaming communities, etc.) to make sure your data had no inherent biases. Armed with such a dataset, you could make an informed statement about the gender distribution of gamers, and probably a whole lot more.

 

I agree with the general observation that the gender distribution of gamers is not 50/50, but anecdotal evidence (and this very flawed study) does not a valid conclusion make.

[LAwLz]

It's nothing to do with academic qualifications, and everything to do with the information at hand. You would need data on a set of subjects that number in the hundreds of thousands, then you would need to check variables such as subject distribution (to make sure your selected subjects were not from a limited geographic area, a limited set of gaming communities, etc.) to make sure your data had no inherent biases. Armed with such a dataset, you could make an informed statement about the gender distribution of gamers, and probably a whole lot more.

 

I agree with the general observation that the gender distribution of gamers is not 50/50, but anecdotal evidence (and this very flawed study) does not a valid conclusion make.

Finding proper studies is very hard since it's "cool" to have a big female demographic now, which leads to biased surveys.

For example this one where simply having played a game in the last 60 days makes you a "gamer", or the countless studies where casual phone games and games on Facebook makes you a "gamer".

If you instead look at for example the top Quake players you might find one or two girls in the top 100. Same goes for other competitive games.

 

It all comes down to what your definition of "gamer" is. Is it just someone who plays games from time to time? Then sure, I have no problem imagining that 50% of "gamers" are female. Pretty much everyone plays a game sometime, and half the population is female so it makes sense.

If you look at a lot of the more casual games like Farmville then I don't even have any problem imagining that the vast majority of people playing the game is female.

If your definition of a "gamer" is more strict like playing competitive and skill based games on, then the gender cliffs becomes far bigger. We can see this because there are leader boards for games, and there are studies like what kind of games people play (and females tend to play more mobile and casual games).

 

If we look at the THEESA study that is pretty popular as a "there are a lot of female gamers!" source, you can see that 66% of the "gamers" are people that play board games, lay puzzles and play casual/social games like Farmville.

My point is that all the studies we have for these kinds of things are extremely flawed and you can manipulate the scores very easily.

 

Sure, my anecdotal evidence is not definitive proof of anything, but what about the collective anecdotes from everyone on LinusTechTips? Have you ever joined a game of Halo and half the people in the game were women? Have you even joined a 25 man raid in WoW and 12 of the participants were female?

Out of the several thousands of people I have talked to during games, I have probably only encountered a handful of females. How about you? Has ANYONE on LinusTechTips ever played a game with let's say 30 people and 15 of them were female? According to this study, that should be the norm. The study is complete bullshit in more than 1 way. It should not be taken serious. Not as a test for how educated the average "gamer" is, nor should it be taken serious as an indication of how the male:female ratio is.

I wouldn't trust anything else the study found either.

 

I am not trying to say "no females plays games lol", "girls only play casual games!", "boys club! no girls allowed!". What I am trying to say is that pretty much all studies about "gamers" (in general, not just female ones) are absolute bullshit because "gamer" does not have a clear definition and the people behind the study are manipulating the results to fit their predetermined conclusion.

 

 

I am kind of rambling so I'll just end with this:

 

TL:DR:

Never trust a survey about anything "gamer" related. This, and most other surveys are pure bullshit.

I could probably make a survey with the conclusion that the average gamer is very wealthy and generally very successful in life. All I have to do is make up my own definition of "gamer" like "has to own all consoles and a gaming PC worth X amounts of dollars, and have a collection of games worth Y dollars".

[wpirobotbuilder]

TL:DR:

Never trust a survey about anything "gamer" related. This, and most other surveys are pure bullshit.

I could probably make a survey with the conclusion that the average gamer is very wealthy and generally very successful in life. All I have to do is make up my own definition of "gamer" like "has to own all consoles and a gaming PC worth X amounts of dollars, and have a collection of games worth Y dollars".

It would certainly help if there was a widely accepted definition of a "gamer", but that's a whole other can of worms.

[Wano97]

 

TL:DR:

Never trust a survey about anything "gamer" related. This, and most other surveys are pure bullshit.

I could probably make a survey with the conclusion that the average gamer is very wealthy and generally very successful in life. All I have to do is make up my own definition of "gamer" like "has to own all consoles and a gaming PC worth X amounts of dollars, and have a collection of games worth Y dollars".

^ My thoughts aswell

Also: 666 posts? Illuminati confirmed.

[YellowDragon]

I love reading the comments regarding how the Internet made said posters' smarter. Alrighty then, let's put these people on Jeopardy and see how well they do. Oh wait, you can't get access to a search engine or Wikipedia while being on the show. Ever since the Internet came along I have seen Gen Y and the generation after suffer from the following:

 

1. Lack of punctuation, grammar, and spelling.

2. Lack of thinking for solutions (laziness) as the Internet seems to provide the answer to everything (I've seen a lot of false crap being put online in the past 21 years)

3. Thinking that the Internet can replace a proper education. Sorry, that's complete FUD. "I got my certification or degree on the Internet" does not fly with a lot of employers.

4. Thinking that being in a CS clan makes them part of a master race. Yeah, keep riding that Ferris wheel till your 45. By then you would have only obtained one skill that can't be applied to any real world job.

As someone from GenY that's on the verge of finishing college I feel I offer my own views on this.

 

1. Spelling and Grammar has been a problem since the dawn of time, nothing new here.

 

2. As a programmer you know what I find stupid? Trying to reinvent the wheel when it's not necessary, the only reason software moves forward is by standing on the shoulders of those who came before us  and then occasionally looking back to see that there is not a better way of doing things. Alot of the problems that I face I see if someone else has worked on something similar and then see how I can improve upon that concept to better suit my needs. If that something does not exist I then will write original code from scratch. The thing is why waste time and effort when it's not needed? In fact half of the software you use today probably would not exist if there was no form of leapfrogging with previous code. I'm going into my senior year of college and am looking at a dual major in Software Engineering and Computer Science, knowing how to save time is a valuable skill and at the same time knowing how to find information is also valuable. In my experience a lot of people from the older generations have a lot of trouble grasping this and think its cheating if you search for something, I get praised for how fast I complete my work. Most managers that I have worked with love the fact that I won't just waste time on trying to rewrite a codebase from scratch unless it is absolutely necessary and i will only do a rewrite as a last resort step whereas most programmer would start from scratch .( only one project I have ever worked on required a total rewrite)

 

There is this saying that rings true. The mark of a good programmer is his/her ability to work with other people code no matter how messy,   The mark of a great programmer is when you can combine other people's code into your own and still have something that can be understood easily.

 

3. I really hate to break it to you but the Internet already has replaced the need for a proper education. The only reason I'm in college is that I need the validation that a degree provides.  I will agree with you on the point that I think online classes are garbage but that is another discussion matter. I'm talking about straight looking up information and figuring out how to accomplish a task. I haven't come across a single class that has truly taught me anything. It might come as a shock to you but alot of my comp-sci and sweng class just spark interesting ideas and I follow that up and do research on the net to follow up on those ideas and actually do something useful. Did a class teach me anything about Unity?  - No Did a class teach me how to develop apps across mobile platforms? -No Did a class teach me how to mange large software project with multiple people writing multiple parts of code? No. All the examples I mentioned are things I taught myself how to do, a class did not teach them to me. In fact it was this initiative  with learning material on my own that allowed me to get a research grant for this coming fall  semester to allow me to experiment with virtual reality technology such as the Oculus Rift. Will I have a class that teachs me how to implement the Oculus Rift within say a  simulator game?

 

FAT CHANCE. The only way you are going to learn about alot of software topic is by getting  your feet wet, no class will hold your hand, you are on your own. Software development is a field that's rapidly evolving and most of  the concepts in class taught today are woefully out of date. I have had a class in  Pascal....let that sink in Pascal, yes I turned in my code using floppy disks. Was the information in that class useful? Not in the slightest, Underwater basket weaving would have been a better topic as Pascal is a dead programming language that is no longer in use except in a museum. Not to mention it cant be compared even in the slightest to object oriented  languages that are the defacto standard today.

 

4. Hey those gaming clans allow me to have a job which I love doing, If it wasn't for gamers I don't know where I would be today. Right now I'm just waiting around for this last year to be over, I have plenty of experience but not the timetable. Right now I'm just working on porting games for mobile development studios. Sure beats the crap out of my two previous internships where all I did was develop internal error checking software for AM-track train control systems.  The work was so dull and boring that I thought I might go insane.

[The Crazed Child]

I wish it were true.

 

I get called an idiot and "dumb" by some guy for building computers and playing video games. The irony is that he's not so smart either, he does manual labour and can't spell or do maths.

[daemonowner]

As a good little skeptic I know more than to accept the findings of studies because I like them. I've seen that way too many times.

Imagine if a study came out and had found that console gamers were smarter than PC gamers. Console gaming forums would overwhelmingly accept the findings and laugh, PC gaming forums would overwhelmingly deny the results, and look up criticisms of it. It's the same study, the biases are different.

[Silent_Xaxal]

You are probably forgetting about the jocks with anger issues... We'd be massacred the moment we leave our houses..

.. And they'd steal our lunch money...

 

Nah, we'd bribe or convince some to be our goons, then crush the others.