MMOs aren't just for adult or male gamers

     The classic stereotype of a gamer presents us with the image of the lonely teen male hunched over in front of a monitor, indulging in countless hours of online game play. This image is completely shattered when the demographics of MMO play are revealed: According to Nick Yee of Stanford University's ongoing study of MMO demographics since 1999, only 25% of MMO players are teenagers, 50% work full time, 36% are married, and 22% have children. How does our view of the MMO gaming community change as the faces behind the avatars become those of full-time working, happily married mothers. While the movie Second Skin attempted to show that a more diverse population does play these games, it focused on the extreme stereotype of the dedicated 18-hour-a-day male player. Yes, other aspects of their lives were shown (relationships, jobs, kids), but the narratives of their female counterparts were never developed or explored (aside from doing household chores and being romantically engaged with the game).  According to this BBC News article, in 2008, females made up 40% of the gaming community, which has continued to rapidly grow as games have shifted from single-player games to the social communities/ interactions in MMORPGs. This number is probably much larger now with more and more ways to access MMOs from PCs to the Wii to even iPhones. The  increase in availability in these technologies, however, has not just allowed women to become more involved in the MMO community.
    In 2005, New Horizon Interactive, a relatively small studio wanted to create a safe form of social networking for kids and thus the first version of Club Penguin was released. The humble game which started with 15,000 users in October of 2005 hit 1.4 million by March, doubled by September to 2.6 million, and 3.9 million by the time it was two years old. With the growing popularity of the new phenomena of a MMO geared toward and safe enough for a young audience, Disney decided to purchase the company at which point the user count hit 12 million. The growth amounted in 700,000 paid subscriptions which brought in $40 million dollars in revenue. That number has now grown to 150 million users which means that Club Penguin's virtual newspaper is read almost as much as the New York Times. Has Disney's Club Penguin become the biggest kid's social network ever? That is 150 million users in just one age range of 6-14 from 190 different countries. I find this absolutely crazy! A simple word of penguins and minigames has transformed into a global community. The power of MMOs to link together people from all over has allowed new, younger faces to emerge into this growing monster of a community. I can't wait to see where MMORPGs go from here.

A full room in Club Penguin