6 ms·
Yeah those people are definetly not a realistic sample of the average Steam user. I wonder why they chose them in particular.
by boca_honey 3mo ago
Yeah those people are definetly not a realistic sample of the average Steam user. I wonder why they chose them in particular.
- tshaddox 3mo ago“Movie stars tend to be more attractive and better at acting than the median human. Really makes ya think doesn’t it?”
- MrDrone 3mo agoWhat leads you to that conclusion? What do you think the average Steam user looks like? What about them doesn't fit your idea of this?
- piker 3mo agoAverage? Well, male for one. It's not my point, but I don't think you're giving a strong rebuttal either.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- DoctorOW 3mo agoI'd say about half of Steam players aren't male. The "video games are for boys" thing is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy because anyone who believes that will obviously not play with a woman.
- gpt5 3mo agoFrom SQ Magazine (not sure how reliable they are): 92% identify as male, 7% female. https://sqmagazine.co.uk/steam-statistics/ https://sqmagazine.co.uk/steam-statistics/ I think that it's true that games are definitely being played by both males and females today, but I think that statistics is that mobile games skew female, and PC games skew male.
- starkparker 3mo agoThe ESA, which covers only the US ages 18+: 53% male, 68% white, 87% straight, median age 37. https://www.theesa.com/resources/essential-facts-about-the-us-video-game-industry/2026-data/ https://www.theesa.com/resources/essential-facts-about-the-u... A female share of around 40-48% has held steady in this report since around 2007. Quantic Foundry's research largely backs that women prefer more casual-genre games like match 3, with a mobile bent that wouldn't show up in Steam data: https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre/ https://quanticfoundry.com/2017/01/19/female-gamers-by-genre... But they also show a heavy preference for third-person MMOs that are also less likely to show up in Steam data: https://quanticfoundry.com/2023/01/27/perspective/ https://quanticfoundry.com/2023/01/27/perspective/
- sltkr 3mo ago[flagged]
- OxO4 3mo agoAre you suggesting that you can tell the types of games someone enjoys by just looking at them? (Your reply is another example of right-wing discourse being around prejudiced assumptions instead of reality.)
- eudamoniac 3mo agoAre you suggesting that demographic trends between all genres of game are identical?
- teolandon 3mo agonone of your comment is good faith, try again
- eldaisfish 3mo agothe comment you replied to is a homophobic dogwhistle. The tech sector is rife with blatant homophobia, racism, and a false sense of intellectual superiority. Hacker News is an excellent cross section of the typical techbro culture.
- ffsm8 3mo ago[flagged]
- eldaisfish 3mo ago[flagged]
- skupig 3mo agoMaybe you're out of touch, they pretty much look like the typical young nerd from Seattle.
- hellosputnik 3mo agoIsn't it ironic that you used anecdotal data as a rebuttal to anecdotal data?
- skupig 3mo agoNope! That's just how a normal conversation works.
- dathinab 3mo agoto some degree that is the whole point IMHO there isn't a realistic "typical gamer stereotype" anymore sure you can pick any of the past stereotypes and will find people like that, even many, but it's not "most" or even "a slim majority" Games, and with that Steam, have spread through all of society and Steam is the most wide spread platform for it. So whatever anecdotal data you have based on your local environments selection bias is probably not "overall representative", just a slice of one of the many many different kinds of people playing games bought from steam.
- haunter 3mo ago>typical young nerd from Seattle Unfortunately I usually meet gopnik and niño rata in Dota and CSGO and not typical young nerds from Seattle
- solid_fuel 3mo agoTangential but I would not want to play CSGO from a couch with a controller, it's already sweaty enough with a mouse and keyboard.
- haunter 3mo agoI used to play the PS3 version lol, good times. I've actually just downloaded it last week to run it in an emulator. So nostalgic with the old menu, old weapons, old maps etc. (only works offline against but but still fun)
- squigz 3mo agoDo you and GP understand that it's not 1998 anymore and that many, many different types of people from all walks of life play games? I'm very curious what you and others think the average Steam user really looks like.
- eudamoniac 3mo agoThe average steam user is a mid twenties straight male. The average steam user in USA is a mid twenties straight white male. The average steam user nowhere on earth is anything resembling these marketed demographics
- squigz 3mo agoDo you have any actual data to back this up? Because it doesn't really line up with my experience.
- dandellion 3mo agoGo on Steam, look at the most played games right now, look at the demographics for those games. Or pick some player profiles at random, count how many girls vs guys you find (very easy to tell with high accuracy just by looking at the games they play, yes there are exceptions but they're actually quite rare, I promise you can get >90% accuracy after you do a few). Steam user base is at least 3/4 male by user count, probably even more by play time.
- squigz 3mo agoClearing up confusion about a demographic by assuming things about other demographics seems like a bad idea.
- dandellion 3mo agoI'm not clearing up confusion, I'm letting you know it's pretty easy for everybody to see that you're wrong. If you want to continue being wrong just because the method used doesn't meet your very rigorous standards, suit yourself. Emperor's new clothes and all that.
- malfist 3mo agoWho says they're average? Why should they be average?
- tyre 3mo agoThey want to expand the public's perception of who a gamer is, to make people feel more comfortable identifying as a gamer. If you included a sweaty CSGO player farming loot boxes with bloodshot eyes at 3am, that doesn't give you a new market. They're already going to buy. Marketing is made so they you identify with the product or identify with an aspirational version of yourself. Gaming is seen as heavily male-dominated. Expanding that is smart. (And yes, I know why you're asking and what answer you're looking for.)
- Levitz 3mo agoIt's a more nuanced situation than people generally want to accept. >Marketing is made so they you identify with the product or identify with an aspirational version of yourself. Gaming is seen as heavily male-dominated. Expanding that is smart. This is the most simple and probably accurate explanation. Companies like to make money, untapped markets look like money. The problem is that then, the current audience, who is primarily male, can raise concerns about the marketing not catering to them anymore. There's a political arm who doesn't like that at all, and they will not only attempt to enforce collective delusion to dismiss the whole thing (what do you mean? everybody plays videogames, playerbase is split 50/50 pretty much!), but invalidate the very idea that a primarily male audience can have grievances about being catered to. This makes them look insane and alienates the original audience politically speaking, and ironically, makes the original audience look bigoted, which puts consumers off. This dance has been going on for like a decade and a half at this point and it's only recently that signs of it dying down have started to show. I can only hope.
- munificent 3mo agoThere is no average Steam user. People are not vectors of real-valued numbers, and "mean person" is not a coherent concept. Does the average person have half a penis and half a vagina? Is their skin a tan-ish mocha brown? Do they have slightly but not really curly hair that is long in some parts and short in others? Incomplete epicanthic folds? Any representation of people will be a randomly chosen sample, and not an attempt to visualize the blending of all people from the sample.