"The average video game player is now 30 years old, even that's a little older than you might expect. 19 percent are now 50 and older, it was 9 percent in 1999. But probably the real surprising stat is that women over 40 spend more time playing games online than any other age group including teenage boys. And they're mainly playing puzzles and card games and that sort of thing."
And Budd says game makers are starting to take notice. Especially since the percentages are likely to climb…
"From what we hear from people in the industry, they realize what a huge market this is and you'll be seeing more games geared towards this group. And it's interesting, because I think what you've got going on here is you've got, first off, kind of the Pong generation that grew up on video games in the 70s, they're comfortable with them. They still find them call…and so they're not necessarily dropping this as they hit their 40s and 50s."
And again, the surprise is, online gaming is most popular among women over 40. Video games…it would seem….have come of age. You can find us, at BootCamp.com. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.