There are always studies flying around regarding the social habits of anyone who plays videogames (which is becoming as general as a survey on people who watch movies) and most of which tend to revolve around the positives on the activity, as far as I’ve read. Of course there’s always disparaging information around, but after reading Grand Theft Childhood this year showing how bad a reputation games have gotten in the past, it’s interesting how much the stigma associated with playing games has really changed in the public eye. Last month we discussed the story about how 97% of youth today are playing video games in some capacity, now there’s hope for the future since apparently gamers are more likely to date, get married or just generally socialize than non-gamers.

The survey, conducted by Ipsos Media CT and IGN Entertainment was released just a week ago and did indeed come to the conclusion that gamers are more likely to attend concerts, play sports, or generally be socially active than people who don’t play games at all. It is a bit of a head-scratching issue and seems to be a very broad stroke of the audience surveyed, but some of the statistics they gathered seemed to contradict the concept of solidarity and fear of the opposite sex from those who wield a controller or keyboard/mouse. According to the survey, 55% of all gamers are married, 48% have kids and the average age of people who have just started playing videogames in the last two years was 32. Some of the data was also a bit easy to see, with the average salary of a “gaming household” (a term which I’m not sure is easily defined) is about $20K more a year than non-gamers. While many people might want to believe that playing videogames means you’ll be making more money, it seems that it’s more indicative that those with more disposable income will be likely to spend it on things like gaming consoles, PCs and other shiny things.

The most interesting aspect of this study that seems to becoming more recognized throughout the industry and media outlets is that gaming is a very social activity. According to the press release that was distributed last week they found that 75% of gamers played with others online or offline and that gamers were twice as likely to go on dates than non-gamers. The dating information aside, the concept of socializing in games is something we’ve talked about before and this is another bit of evidence to support that gamers interacting with each other and those who may not be into playing videogames is what seems to be allowing the industry to continue its steady pace of growth. To that fact, the survey also indicated that 37% of gamers said that family and friends came to them for up-to-date information on news, movies, TV, etc, which is considerably higher than the 22% for non-gamers.

Without seeing the survey results and just how this whole thing was conducted, it’s hard to really stress much legitimacy with all the numbers. Statistics are something I do enjoy mulling over, but it’s pretty well-understood that while one survey can reach a conclusion about a topic, a new one will come to the polar-opposite conclusion a week later. Without much of a definition of what constitutes a “gamer”, whether it involves owning and playing PC or console games at least once a week, or getting the occasional round of Solitaire in at work. The only consistent thing I’m noticing across many of these social surveys is that the average “gamer”, whatever the definition, is likely to be playing games with others, consuming new media and spending quite a bit of money. It’s no wonder the in-game advertising world is growing so quickly.

You can reach your own conclusions about the legitimacy of the study. Ipsos is a market research company, and IGN Entertainment is one of the largest videogame communities and news sites around, so we can hope that they have a good idea of this mix of gaming and census taking. With a growing number of groups coming out with very similar conclusions about the social habits of gamers, we may even see in our lifetime that concept of the hardcore gamer will fall inline with the image of playing sports and hanging out with friends, instead of the solitary, couch-ridden dungeon master. Don’t count on it, though.