Gamers not necessarily geeks, researchers find

Just because you’re into online role-playing games, it doesn’t mean you’re chubby, male and covered in pimples.

The game-geek stereotype has come under fire from researchers at the University of Southern California, who found that gamers are older and fitter, and that the most hard-core players are women.

“The players aren’t radically different than the general population. They are us,” says Dmitri Williams, an assistant professor who surveyed 7,000 players of the role-playing game EverQuest II.

Just 6.6 percent of the gamers were teens, while 37 percent were in their 30s. The gamers — who averaged 23 hours of play a week — were 10 percent leaner than most Americans and said they exercised “vigorously” once or twice a week, more than average.

But the gamers’ lives are not completely rosy. Twenty-two percent are obese. On average, they are 20 percent more likely to develop a substance addiction and 50 percent more likely to get depressed, according to data from Sony, which makes the game.

What surprised Williams most was the “intensity” of female gamers.

“The women who do play seem to be more strongly tied to the game, and the community in the game, than the male players. They’re more satisfied, they’re more dedicated, they’re getting more out of it.”