Here's the Second Life-related results* of that survey of gaming personalities I mentioned last month, a kind of Myers-Briggs test for gamers created by Quantic Foundry, a game behavior analytics consultancy co-founded by my colleague Nick Yee. Nick was kind enough to share the data for all the respondents who listed "Second Life" among their favorites, and here's the fascinating results:
(Click image to embiggen)
Most striking is how much older (on average) and more female the SLers are, compared to other games/MMOs, which typically skew toward the 20s/early 30s and much more male. This might be an aytpical sample*, because according to Linden Lab's last publicly reported demographic data (in 2008), 40% of SLers were in their 20s.
Also striking:
The SL gaming personality skews away from Excitement/Destruction/Power as motivations for playing, which is very much the opposite of typical gamers, even in MMOs. Unsurprisingly SLers are much more motivated by Design (i.e. user-generated content), Community, and Fantasy (which includes avatar roleplay and the sense of being in another world) than typical gamers.
Far as other games SLers are interested in, Minecraft and The Sims are not surprising, neither is Skyrim to a certain extent, though the preference for traditional core MMOs like Secret World, Guild Wars, EverQuest and WoW is notable. Maybe NWN should cover more old school MMOs?
*Qualification: These are the results of 60 respondents (Nick tells me), most of them probably coming from this blog, which may skew things, but I believe the data generally applies to SL community at large (except perhaps for median age).
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Most striking is how much older (on average) and more female the SLers are, compared to other games/MMOs, which typically skew toward the 20s/early 30s and much more male. This might be an aytpical sample*
Second life is 12 years old, so maybe people who joined in early 30s, are now in early 40s?
Posted by: Cube Republic | Wednesday, September 02, 2015 at 04:33 PM
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/adult-women-largest-gaming-demographic/ So other games/MMOs, don't typically skew toward the 20s/early 30s and are much more male either.
Posted by: Tankgirl | Wednesday, September 02, 2015 at 09:36 PM
Hello
I was feeling it as resident but not sure and today your post confirm my suspicious, its a very important information for my doctor degree thesis about Art in SL
Do you have any other recent statistics about Demographics in SL like users numbers , etc?
Thanks for now
Best regards
Janjii Rugani (Isa Seppi av)
Posted by: Janjii Rugani | Thursday, September 03, 2015 at 06:42 AM
Hasn't everyone known that SL skews somewhat older and more female for years now? This is Captain Obvious style info since that was common knowledge when I joined up in 2006.
Posted by: CronoCloud Creeggan | Thursday, September 03, 2015 at 07:17 AM
This generally concurs with my SL RL Privacy survey data that had nearly 800 respondents (and much of the other data I have no SL demos):
Of the men completing the survey 51% were between 30-39 years of age, and 30% were between 50-64 years of age. 56% of the women completing the survey were between 30-49, and 26% were between 18-29. 74% of my respondents were women.
Posted by: Canary Beck | Thursday, September 03, 2015 at 08:33 AM
These are the people who can afford Second Life.
It's a group of people who don't have to answer to mom and dad when they charge $300.00 a month on their credit card for things that don't exist.
Posted by: A.J. | Thursday, September 03, 2015 at 01:59 PM
You're generalising. Some stalwarts of SL were poorly monied in the first place. some of them had to drop out unfortunately as the world economy put new pressures on people's incomes. also: a sim does not necessarily have to be owned by one single person, so long as everyone who wants part of it agrees to share the tier costs in a manner they consider fair.
In fact, there are ways to actively engage in SL that require only a handful of dollars a month or maybe not even that - the act of building with basic prims and precanned textures, giving static objects life with scripts of your own device or added onto the work of others, listening to music in a darkened dance club, or even merely walking in a visually enchanting place are almost zero after the costs of getting a setup that can handle Second Life and supplying reasonable broadband and power to it.
Not everyone in Second Life can be a land owner. but everyone in Second Life can experience and potentially affect it, one step at a time.
Posted by: Patchouli Woollahra | Thursday, September 03, 2015 at 05:07 PM
I'm most certainly generalizing. I'm looking at demographics.
It's possible to enjoy SL without spending money and it's possible to find a meal by collecting free samples on toothpicks or by growing your own food.
But when I'm inworld at events and looking at the avatars or sailing in the Blake Sea sims, it's clear how much spending is going on. I don't see a lot homemade clothing and prim-built huts.
People are paying for all of this, even Marketplace freebies, sandboxes, music in the darkened clubs, and every prim of visually enchanting places that you find on a toothpick.
Posted by: A.J. | Thursday, September 03, 2015 at 08:47 PM
I agree with Captain Obvious. I have been running events in SL for 8 years now and very clearly female and over 40 dominates the profile of the typical SL regular. The only reason SL's own poll differs is because they have ivy league educated marketers who were trained in marketing to the 18-35 age group (cliche target market) and so they have to justify their skills in order to maintain their jobs. It will eventually take a lot of Captain Obviouses to pound reality in LL's management before they realize they have something very special - and then they will make real money when they shift their marketing focus to older, higher-income individuals and embrace SL's unique flavor instead of trying to copycat whatever is hot this year with 18 year olds.
Posted by: Ajax Manatiso | Friday, September 04, 2015 at 06:19 AM
There's a difference between "something everybody knows" and actual statistically-valid data, folks. After all, there's a lot of things "everybody knows" that turned out to not be true at all.
That said, the MMO thing isn't that surprising; quite a lot of MMOs are very social, and the Secret World and Guild Wars 2 even have 'dress up' and social activities as a major component! They don't allow for user content like SL, but for a non-creator who still spends time in roleplay, or at music shows, or whatnot in SL... there's a lot of overlap.
Posted by: Aliasi Stonebender | Tuesday, September 08, 2015 at 03:17 AM
Oh gee, maybe I been playing the wrong game all these years hehehehehe caws all I've ever been after was excitement, destruction, and powah...and I meant biness hehehehehe
Posted by: Jumpman Lane | Friday, September 11, 2015 at 05:50 PM