Nielsen: WoW is most played core game by 25-54 females
by Mike Schramm 
Apr 9th 2009 at 7:00PM
You can read the report in PDF form over here -- the chart above might be the most interesting piece of information, as it shows that though males still make up a huge part of the PC gaming audience, many of them have now moved on to consoles, and women (especially older women, over 25), during the last month of last year, are making up a huge audience for PC games. Later in the report, you can see what kinds of games women are really playing: Solitare, Freecell, Minesweeper, and all of those other little attention grabbers on every PC. But among those widespread casual games is our own World of Warcraft. And while the 25-52 male audience of 675, 713 for that game still remains larger than the female audience in the same demo, the ladies aren't far behind.
Neilsen also calculated some base stats for WoW, including the fact that 1.8 million unique people played the game, and the average time of gameplay per week was 744 minutes, just over 12 hours (slightly up from last year's average). Additionally, of those who play World of Warcraft, their second most-played game was Solitaire, followed by Warcraft III. Fascinating stuff. Remember that these are statistics, so they are more general trends than anything else, but it's definitely true World of Warcraft and PC gaming in general is no longer only the domain of the male demographic.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Blizzard, News items
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Gadrick Apr 9th 2009 7:06PM
I believe it
Ferarro Apr 9th 2009 7:31PM
Proof that we play! =)
jlpknights82 Apr 9th 2009 7:10PM
As a female, I enjoy this statistical proof of our general bloodthirstiness. RAWR
DM7000 Apr 9th 2009 7:14PM
I r scared...
Cedoh Apr 9th 2009 7:16PM
Speaking as a straight male, I'm not complaining either. All power to you, ladies!
. . . except when you're rolling against me for the Illustration of Dragon Soul
jfofla Apr 9th 2009 7:11PM
I have been to all three Blizzcons
At the first Blizzcon it was "WOW I think that is a girl!"
At the second Blizzcon it was roughly 10% female a HUGE increase.
At the last Blizzcon it seemed 40% female.
The women play WOW!
Lemming Apr 16th 2009 10:33AM
"anything else, but"
But what?
vexis58 Apr 9th 2009 8:36PM
I know! Don't just leave an article hanging like that!
Deathiful Apr 9th 2009 7:30PM
My girlfriend plays and she kicks my ass in duels too >.
Chavezz Apr 9th 2009 7:38PM
Are they saying that 1.8 million people account for all 11 million subscriptions?
Chavezz Apr 9th 2009 7:42PM
It looks to me like they're using a small sample of people of whom have the program-tracking software on their computers. That is not a representative sample at all. Unless I'm wrong on what I'm reading in the .pdf, this was a horribly designed study and no valid at all.
Though I would love it if that many women played WoW!
DED Apr 9th 2009 7:46PM
There are 1.8 million people playing WoW in North America, and 11 million worldwide. Nielsen isn't collected data or on, or drawing conclusions about the rest of the world.
Haven't read up on their methodology, but am sure they're using something approximating a stratified random sample. Therefore, a relatively small sample size as compared to the size of the total population does not mean their results are incorrect.
Tessla Apr 9th 2009 7:55PM
1.8 million out of 11 million is a sample group of 16% of the total population, which statistically is phenomenally large and therefore has a much smaller margin of error.
outside north america you could argue that because of sociocultural differences, females would be less likely to play, or not have as much time to play, therefore invalidating the model, but i would argue that considering places like australia, western europe, and east asia make up a lot of the remaining players, you're looking at a lot of high-tech liberal countries where men and women are going to have pretty similar social tendancies to america... and considering the technological prevalence in europe and asia specifically, there are probably MORE girls that play.
this seems like an incredible accurate and telling study to me, but as stated, the methodology is an unknown and could have significant gaps.
Chavezz Apr 9th 2009 8:48PM
The methodology is in the .pdf
"For electronic measurement of PC games, the Nielsen MegaPanel® sample of more than
185,000 US tracked PC’s is used. The software based metering technology allows for individual
programs to be identified. When a program is run on a PC, the program name as well as the
person(s) using the PC is collected by the meter."
I, for one, have never heard of this, so I assume I wasn't represented in this study, and even if I somehow had this tracking software without my knowledge, I don't believe they'd be able to distinguish my gender.
All I'm saying is: WoW Insider sucks at reporting things. Their articles are almost always incorrect or extremely biased.
Why am I here?
Neena Apr 9th 2009 10:40PM
Chavezz, just because someone has never heard of the Nielsen MegaPanel does not mean that he or she is not represented by the survey, nor does it somehow invalidate the results.
I have never known a Nielsen family (that is, a household with a Nielsen box or people meter that is used to track television ratings), but that doesn't mean that, say, no one watches "American Idol" or that "Chuck" is a big hit. :)
Having said that, though, IIRC, the MegaPanel is a self-selected sample (as in people volunteer, unlike the TV meters) that's used a lot to measure search engines and online shopping information.
I'm more inclined to trust the console data, as that was pulled from the TV Nielsen households, and Nielsen is very, very good at developing representative samples of the population.
At any rate, it's definitely food for thought. Anecdotally, I know I run into far more fellow female players than I did at launch.
slimj091 Apr 10th 2009 1:32AM
""For electronic measurement of PC games, the Nielsen MegaPanel® sample of more than
185,000 US tracked PC’s is used"
so how do they get "over 400,000" from a sample of 185,000? pollsters suck. if i go out and ask 100 americans if they like to eat garbage, and 50% say yes. does that mean over 150,000,000 americans like to eat garbage?
bsides88 Apr 9th 2009 7:40PM
Ive been playing for over 3 years, lately whenever I jump on vent to pug a raid (which is frequently) theres always at least one girl on. Majority of the time shes the raid leader!
This might sound sexist, but I think women GENERALLY have a greater aptitude for social intelligence. Which is really what WOW is all about.
Melody Apr 9th 2009 7:45PM
I'm still waiting for the post from hardcores saying we are ruining the game.
Manatank Apr 9th 2009 7:48PM
Women aren't ruining the game in general, but you are in particular.
Chavezz Apr 9th 2009 7:55PM
STOP STANDING IN DOOMFIRE !!!