Actual age of the 4th edition player base

[Lackhand]

While I know that they exist, I have never met a single gamer over 30. I mean, face to face, of course. Not a one.

Now that you all feel old...
I'd say the average age is in the late twenties, with the median age in the VERY late teens/early twenties.

I'd say that's more or less the target audience; 15+.

I started playing when I was 10, on the bus to elementary school. Man, I was pissed when I couldn't play Just An Elf anymore!

 

[BASHMAN]

I'd say ave player age of 20, their target audience is age 16.

And now for my life-story of gaming: I started on rpgs when I was in middle school with the Basic D&D black boxed set in 1990. Never actually got a group to play with until college, 1999, and was hooked then. WHen I transfered to University, I branched out into other rpgs [and back into Basic D&D], developed my own [called Epoch, a hyper realistic % system] that never got off the ground. Onto graduate school, got into 7th Sea, played DnD 3.x when there was no alternative, and began developing BASH! when I couldn't find a decent supers system that was easy to teach to kids. Started doing the Northern CA rpg convention circuit, running BASH! demos, and ran into that group of college friends who'd had such great AD&D 2e games. Started playing with them again [DnD 3.5] and having fun, despite frustrating mechanics, and actually broke down and bought PH2, Tome of Battle, Spell Compendium, Magic Item Compendium, and Heroes of Battle a few months ago. And now 4e is coming... So I am on the fence. On the one hand, I have several 3e books that I've only had a short time... and on the other hand, I am hoping against hope that 4e will fix those mechanical problems and make D&D as fun as it was before.

 

[Zaruthustran]

1) What do you think is the average age of the majority of current DnD players?

2) What age bracket do you think WoTC is targeting with the new edition?

3) How were YOU brought into the game? (Friend's, older relative, picked it up on your own, etc)?

1) Late 20s to early 30s.

2) Teens to early 30s.

3) Older brother and sister brought me in when I was in 1st grade, back in 1981 or so.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

1) What do you think is the average age of the majority of current DnD players?

I have no data on which to speculate.

On ENWorld, it's 35, IIRC. In my local group, it would be about 30 - but that's an average taken from 14-70.

My guess is that antecdotal evidence from the ENWorld community will skew toward 35, since many (most?) gaming groups seem to be comprised largely of people within a similar age bracket.

2) What age bracket do you think WoTC is targeting with the new edition?

Males aged 15-35, the main market for video games and a guaranteed big spending market on relatively cheap entertainment products.

3) How were YOU brought into the game? (Friend's, older relative, picked it up on your own, etc)?

My parents taught me. I was 6 or 7 when I started playing Basic D&D.

 

[Delta]

1) 35
2) 20
3) Requested it as gift myself (after accolades in Games Magazine).

 

[Delta]

For 35 to be the average age (assuming some kind of balanced distribution) you'd have to have as many people playing D&D who are over 50 as under 20. There's no way in hell that can be true.

No you don't. You just need a big bulge in the 30's-40's and less people under 20. Quick and simple example: 15, 25, 30, 35, 40, 40, 40, 45, 45 --> average is 35 (note nobody over 50)

Now note this ENWorld poll on when people started playing: sure enough, there's a massive bulge of people starting around 1980, which would put them around 40 years old today: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=171146

 

[T. Foster]

1) ~30-35
2) no idea, but presumably younger than #1
3) via best friend in 3rd grade (age 9); he was introduced via his 5-years-older brother -- no idea how/when he was introduced...

 

[Gwathlas]

I'm wondering what WoTC's gameplan is these days, and If we happen to be part of it
So..
3 questions:

1) What do you think is the average age of the majority of current DnD players?

2) What age bracket do you think WoTC is targeting with the new edition?

3) How were YOU brought into the game? (Friend's, older relative, picked it up on your own, etc)?

1) 30 - 40

2) 8 - 10

3) On my own. Bought D&D in late 74 or early 75.

 

[Roland55]

I'm wondering what WoTC's gameplan is these days, and If we happen to be part of it
So..
3 questions:

1) What do you think is the average age of the majority of current DnD players?

2) What age bracket do you think WoTC is targeting with the new edition?

3) How were YOU brought into the game? (Friend's, older relative, picked it up on your own, etc)?

Oof! You do ask the hard ones ...

1) I don't have a big enough sample to know. Of the ones I've seen, it's a 'bimodal distribution' with means in the early 40s and the late 20's. You've probably seen something different.

2) If they're not crazy, they will target younger folks -- certainly below 30, maybe even below 20.

3) A non-scientist friend of mine took pity on me. It was pretty obvious I needed stress relief. Yes -- I truly am old. I strongly suspect he also needed more players for his game.

 

[KarinsDad]

On my recent poll here, the median was 33, the mode was 33, and the mean was 32.6 (give or take with rounding errors since I only had birth year). Less than 4% were 20 or younger and less than 18% were 25 or younger.

I do not think the age here at ENWorld is that disparate from the rest of the DND world. It might be a year or two higher, but there is no way that the overall median, mode, or mean are in the mid to low 20s. High school and college age players, even those who do not purchase books, visit the Internet too.

Personally, I think most school age kids play computer games instead and I think WotC is going to have a tough (i.e. impossible) time breaking significantly into that younger market segment. I think there are social and cultural reasons that DND starts picking up in the late 20s / early 30s age groups and it might be that way for many decades to come.

And, I'm pretty sure WotC clearly understands those reasons as well.