Yesterday a TV report said that in Canada the average age of a video gamer is now forty. Forty! We’re told that systems such as the new “Wii Resort” and Microsoft’s “You’re In the Movie” are marketed to the middle-aged participant. Can you believe it?
The just released Entertainment Software Association (ESA) statistics say that thirty-five is the average age in the U.S.A. — not quite our forty, but still sort of middle age — and they add that one out of four gamers is over the age of fifty, that 40% are women and also that women age eighteen or older represent 33% of the game-playing population while boys age seventeen or younger represent only 18%.
I’m not sure why I’m surprised. Even business men play games on their PDAs between appointments and while travelling. But the stereotype of videogames being the exclusive domain of teenage boys persists. That is, until I acknowledge I play Solitaire on my computer. I’ve never considered that I contribute to the over-40 gamer statistic, but I do! That’s quite a revelation for very conservative me. 
