See? Married man in his 30s plays Wii...

Those of us a little longer in the tooth probably remember those days in the '90s when gamers were crudely pigeon-holed as sweaty teenagers in darkened rooms or, as TV adverts tried to suggest, happy smiling teenagers in brightly lit rooms. Games have come a long way since then, of course, with technology and online gaming transforming the audience, while Nintendo's been a pioneer in recent years in bringing new gamers into the fold.

Still, when trying to understand what an "average" modern gamer is like, it can be fun to look at the results of consumer surveys; we do this in the knowledge that the results are unlikely to be particularly factual but will, nevertheless, raise our eyebrows. One such fun result is from a survey by Pixwoo, a "video gamer's social network" that conducted a survey with 2000 Brits that described themselves as gamers. The headline is that an average UK gamer, according to this survey, is a 35-year-old married man earning roughly £23,000 a year, while also finding time to play for around two hours a day.

Other (less surprising) results from the survey suggest that women play games for as long as men, these gamers typically own two consoles and roughly 18 games, while partners apparently argue twice a week about the time spent playing. In a plus for Nintendo, the Wii came out as the most popular console among those that completed the survey.

Surveys like this rarely tell a substantial story beyond a rough average over their small list of respondents, but it's not beyond the realm of reality to suggest that a lot of current gamers are those same individuals that used to hunch over an NES on a small TV in the late '80s and '90s. Or maybe they're just the demographic that are likely to be involved in a "video gamer's social network" and willingly complete a survey. You decide.

[source computerandvideogames.com]