According to a survey conducted by video game price comparison site Playr2.com, gamers age 18 - 40 may end up dedicating almost two years of their lives playing video games. The company conducted a survey of 1,452 of its members, asking a variety of questions about their gaming habits. The survey found that the average gamer will spend about 1.8 years of their life playing games on various platforms. 

The average starting age of gamers was around 9.1 years. Most said they spend an average of 9.2 hours a week playing games. Most surveyed said they planned on giving up gaming when they turned 45 years old.

A new survey conducted by MCV UK finds that a majority of gamers in the United Kingdom believe that the never-ending stream of security breaches has seriously hurt consumer confidence. While hacking groups like Lulz Security may be retreating from attacking game-related websites and services, gamers surveyed say that the damage is already done.

MCV surveyed 633 UK gamers who use digital services such as PlayStation Store, iTunes, Steam, and other digital distribution. They found that 34 percent had doubt that most publishers are capable of protecting the personal data of users. Another 20 percent said that they don’t trust download services at all.

The Australian Government’s Attorney-General’s Department has posted an online survey to gauge public opinion on the recently released draft guidelines for the R18+ ratings classification released earlier this week.

The survey contains four possible answers showing either support or opposition to the new game classification and a comment section where participants can leave lengthy comments. The survey does not seem to be exclusive to citizens of Australia (though it does require users to leave their name, state, territory and email).

Here are the four choices users can select:

A survey conducted by GameSpot reveals that consumer confidence in the PlayStation 3, Sony, and the PlayStation Network has not been diminished by the three week downtime of the network that caused a serious breach in security. GameSpot surveyed 2,285 of its members to find out if they planned on sticking with the console. A majority of those users said that they would stick with the PS3, while nine percent said they were jumping ship to Xbox 360.

When asked how the recent security breach impacted how they felt about Sony and the PlayStation Network, 14 percent said that they no longer trust Sony or the PlayStation Network; 35 percent said it had not changed their opinion; 23 percent said that they would trust Sony going forward because the security breach forced the company to add stricter security measures; and 28 percent said that they would change how much information they share with Sony.

A survey conducted by Information Solutions Group and paid for by casual game publisher PopCap Games claims that one-third of adults in the United States and the United Kingdom identify themselves as "mobile phone gamers." The survey also found that among mobile phone gamers, the mobile phone is now the primary gaming device of choice, surpassing consoles and personal computers in less than two years. The survey also found that smartphone owners are the most avid consumers of mobile phone games. These and other purchase and consumption trends identified in the survey suggest growth in the mobile games sector that will continue for the foreseeable future.

A new survey from Bigpoint reveals that the stereotypes associated with online gamers are false. A global survey of 6,663 "online gamers" found that most considered themselves well-rounded individuals with real world friends, good looking, and in relatively good health. The Bigpoint Gamer Survey presents a different image of online gamers - attractive, healthy, cultured, and popular with the opposite sex.

Around 62 percent of players said they had more friends in real life than online. Around 55 percent of players under 20 said they have more real friends than online friends, and 73 percent over the age of 50 claimed to have more real-life friendships. A total of 28 percent of the people met most of their friends online and went on to meet them in real life. Only a tenth of all gamers said that their only real friends were online gamers.

According to a new Rasmussen Reports survey 54 percent of the American public oppose the new net neutrality rules approved by the FCC last week. The national telephone survey also found that only 21 percent of likely U.S. voters want the FCC to regulate the Internet as it does radio and television, while 25 percent are not sure.

According to Rasmussen, the survey was conducted shortly after the FCC decided on a party line vote to impose net neutrality regulations on the Internet. Republicans and unaffiliated voters overwhelmingly opposed the FCC regulation of the Internet, while Democrats were more evenly divided. Those who use the Internet the most were most opposed to FCC regulations.

Fifty-six percent of voters believe that the FCC will use its regulatory powers to promote a political agenda. Half of that number (28 percent) disagreed.

What is the most impactful technological advance in the last ten years according to the American public? According to a new Zogby poll, broadband internet access.

The Zogby International interactive survey found that adults think the expansion of high-speed internet has had the greatest technological impact on society over the past decade. The survey also revealed that broadband is a technology that most believe they cannot live without. The poll of 1,950 adults was conducted from Dec. 8 - Dec. 10, 2010.

New data from NPD Group reveals that only 15 percent of children in the United States want video games for the holiday season. The data comes from the Kids Industry Data Service (KIDS) report. The report found that video game-related gifts were the second most wanted items, behind "toys," but ahead of items like electronics, books and other entertainment.

Of those kids who wanted video game-related items, The Wii and DS represented 22 percent of all requests, while 18 percent wanted an Xbox 360, 7 percent requested a PS3, while the rest were marked as "other."

Call of Duty: Black Ops and Halo: Reach were the most popular video game items on children's wish lists.

Kinect was the most asked-for accessory, though accessory request only accounted for 6 percent of all items on Children’s wish lists.

Source: Gamasutra

Low-tech gifts rank higher this year than high-tech toys and video games on children's wish lists this year, according to a survey conducted by YouthBeat. The survey included kids (ages 6-10), tweens (11-13) and teens (14-18 years old) who were asked about items on their 2010 holiday gift wish lists.

While nearly half of those surveyed listed a video game or video game system as a preferred gift overall, low-tech items such as books or non-electronic games were also a popular choice. YouthBeat concluded that these results were due to the state of the economy.

"Children seem to be somewhat more strategic about their choices, adding more items and smaller gifts than in previous years," said Amy Henry, Vice President of Youth Insights at C&R Research.

According to a new Zogby poll, 63 percent of adults in the United States would rather do all of their holiday shopping online than going to a local mall. Nearly 64 percent said that they plan to make the bulk of its holiday purchases online this year.

While the data is interesting, it's not all that different from a similar poll conducted last year by Zogby. In 2009 61 percent preferred exclusively shopping on the Internet, 23 percent said they would rather shop at the mall, and 69 percent said they planned to purchase holiday gifts online.

On the other hand, even though 86 percent say they have made online holiday gift purchases in the past, 31 percent prefer to do all their shopping at the mall this year, and 22 percent do not plan to buy any gifts online at all

We will see if this poll data pans out for online retailers after the holiday shopping season is over.

According to a new Harris Poll, over half of Americans (53 percent) say they are planning to purchase toys as gifts this year while two in five (40 percent) say they will not purchase toys and 7 percent are not sure. Three-quarters of those surveyed in a household with children (73 percent) say they will purchase toys as gifts this year. I feel sorry for the one-fourth of those kids who live in those other households. These are just some of the results of a special Harris Poll of 3,084 adults surveyed online between October 11 - 18, 2010.

A new Harris Poll finds that a majority of Americans believe the Supreme Court is a necessary branch of the government. Why Harris Poll asked such a silly question, I do not know. The poll also found that two in five Americans (42 percent) said they are not knowledgeable about the Supreme Court confirmation process. Almost three in five (58 percent) Americans said that they are knowledgeable about the process, with 14 percent saying they are very knowledgeable and 44 percent saying they are somewhat knowledgeable. Americans 65 and older (74 percent) and men (71 percent) were more likely to say they were knowledgeable on the subject compared to younger Americans (18-33) and women (both 46 percent).

Anecdotal evidence to be sure, but a reader poll by MyCE about DRM is nonetheless interesting. The reader poll, which surveyed 386 users, asked if "the implementation of Digital Rights Management (DRM) actually encouraged more people to illegally download cracked copies of movies or games instead of purchasing legitimate copies."

According to the results, 11 percent said no; 23 percent said it made no difference and a whopping 66 percent said yes.

Some will probably argue that the readers of the site are naturally skewed towards a negative opinion on DRM, or that the poll is highly unscientific, but the results are still interesting.

Visit the site and check out its fancy pie chart.

While you can probably guess what mobile companies would say when asked what they think of net neutrality, The Globe and Mail decided to ask them anyway, as part of an international survey. The results? Mobile companies are *gasp* against net neutrality. Shocking, right?

The survey, conducted by Law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for the Globe and Mail, asked international mobile executives what they thought of mobile net neutrality. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said that they would like to "break away from fixed line and mobile net neutrality."

 Respondents also indicated that legal loopholes in the existing system need to be fixed before different types of data can be identified and treated appropriately. Basically the mobile industry highlighted in the survey have no problem charging content providers for giving priority to data.

"The survey responses indicate that the greater the bandwidth used by a particular app or user, that’s when it would merit a different fee structure. [Traffic] prioritization is likely to be looked at very closely by regulators," said Natasha Good, a partner with the law firm.

People don't seem to know what they want when it comes to gambling. According to two separate polls from Rasmussen, people loathe gambling if it is online, but love it if it is on terra firma. One poll published on August 10th asked people if they had ever gambled online and what they thought of online gambling in general, while another poll conducted on August 9 asked respondents if they approved or disapproved of gambling locally. The results are pretty surprising if you put the responses from both together. It seems that gambling is no longer a moral issue in America..

According to a survey from VGMarket, women spend more money than men when it comes to social gaming. The survey found that female gamers spent $15 more per year on "first-party purchases" in social games than men, and twice as much on in-game money. Women 25 years old and older in North America spent a lot more on virtual currency and items than men: overall spending was $80 for females and $60 for males, even though 78 percent of 2221 respondents were men.

The original survey also found that 75 percent of respondents had purchased digital goods within the last 12 months; but it only polled users of micro-transaction sites PlaySpan, its subsidiary Ultimate Game Card and Facebook currency service Spare Change. It should also be noted that the survey was commissioned by PlaySpan; later VGMarket removed the 75 percent statistic has now been removed from the survey, because it only sampled PlaySpan customers. While the survey's methodology was slightly exclusionary in its questioning and only offered a narrow look into spending habits on certain services, it's still of interest.

Gallup's 2010 Confidence in Institutions poll puts the United States Congress in last place among 16 institutions rated this year with the lowest numbers since the poll was instituted in 1973. The Gallup poll was conducted July 8-11, before Congress passed the financial regulatory reform bill, which President Obama signed into law this week.

Eleven percent of Americans surveyed said "they have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in Congress." This is the lowest rating for Congress in the history of the survey - down from 17 percent in 2009 and one percentage point lower than the previous low for Congress, recorded in 2008.

Results from a political poll of Xbox Live users indicate a preference for the Liberal Democrat party in the UK elections, which kick off across the pond in about 12 hours or so.

Liberal Dem leader Nick Clegg (pictured) garnered over 30.0 percent of the Xbox Live vote reports Edge, easily outdistancing David Cameron and the Conservative Party (20.7 percent) and Gordon Brown’s Labour Party (17.6 percent). 31.3 percent of the XBL users were undecided.

The poll, conducted from April 29 through May 4, ended up with over 416,000 participants.

Microsoft Director of Xbox & Entertainment for the UK Stephen McGill stated, “…we believe our results provide a telling barometer of political attitudes amongst 18–30 year olds nationwide.”

Late last month, GamePolitics reported on a study jointly published by Dr. Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University and the National Institute on Media and the Family which claimed that approximately one in twelve kids show signs of being addicted to video games. Those results were determined by comparing the gaming habits of 8-18-year-olds to symptoms of gambling addiction. Video game addiction is not currently recognized as an official mental disorder.

Shortly after the study’s release, NIMF launched a poll on its website asking: “Do you think that video game addiction is a real problem?” Here’s the national breakdown of the voting as of Monday afternoon.  Of 3,169 respondents:

• 74% - No
• 19% - Yes
• 7%  - Not Sure

Minnesota, where NIMF is headquartered, is the only state with a majority of Yes votes at 51%. The state with the highest percentage of people who don’t think video game addiction is a real problem?  Nevada, at 96%.

Go figure.

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics correspondent Andrew Eisen...

UPDATE: The poll remains open. As of posting time, the numbers have changed a bit. Vermont, with 38%, has joined Minnesota as the only state currently where the Yes votes are in the majority.

Journalist Heather Chaplin called out the video game industry at the Game Developers Conference on Friday.

Was she right?

Register your opinion by voting in our exclusive GamePolitics poll and then use our comments feature to expand on your thoughts...

If you're the kind of consumer who finds value in trading used games, for a long time GameStop has been your only option,

Now that other major retailers like Toys R Us, Best Buy and Amazon.com are getting into the used game business, where will you make your trades?

Be sure to vote in the GamePolitics poll at left...

While gamers continue to debate whether or not the upcoming Resident Evil 5 contains racist imagery, the Penny Arcade crew has weighed in on the issue with a new comic (left).

Incidentally, in a recent GamePolitics poll on the topic, 83% of GP readers disagreed with the idea that there was racism in the game.

For the full PA comic, click here.

As GamePolitics reported this week, online retailer Amazon.com has blocked sales of RapeLay, a Japanese hentai game being offered on Amazon by an affiliated re-seller.

While many were upset by news of the game, some felt that Amazon's decision amounted to censorship.

What do you think?

Register your opinion in the GP poll at left.

With the release of Capcom's Resident Evil 5 drawing closer, the debate over whether the game contains racist imagery has been rekindled.

What do you think?

Register your opinion in the GamePolitics poll at left...

The official Xbox color may be green, but when it comes to politics, online gaming venue Xbox Live is clearly a blue state.

According to a Microsoft rep, a final pre-election poll taken over the weekend shows Democrat Barack Obama with a commanding lead over Republican John McCain among XBL gamers. Here are those numbers:

• Obama 53%
• McCain 33%
• Undecided 14%

In a late September XBL poll, Obama led 43-31%. The new data seems to suggest that some XBL users who were undecided or who supported other candidates in the earlier poll have largely shifted to Obama.

As Xbox Live project manager Ben Vaught recently pointed out to GamePolitics, with 14 million subscribers, if Xbox Live was a state, it would be the seventh largest in the U.S. with 20 electoral votes.

Last month GamePolitics tracked Xbox Live's inaugural use of political polling among its members. In that survey, XBL users overwhelmingly gave the nod to Barack Obama as their choice for president - and that was before anyone knew about those now famous in-game Obama ads.

In partnership with nonprofit Rock the Vote, XBL has just completed a new round of polling. This time users were asked to name which issues were most on their mind.

So what's the answer? In the words of Deomocratic campaign strategist James Carville, it's the economy, stupid. Here are the numbers:

• 35%        Jobs and the Economy
• 19%        Environment
• 18%        Foreign Policy
• 14%        Health Care
• 14%        Education
   

At this point it's fair to say that XBL has jumped into the election season with both feet. In addition to user polling and a voter registration drive, the online service is offering election 2008 gamerpics and themes, as well as a music video from The Presidents of the United States of America's new album.

On Monday, GamePolitics spoke to project manager Ben Vaught about the injection of politics into the XBL user experience. Vaught hadn't seen the results of the new poll at that point:

The reason we do these polls is that Xbox Live is more and more becoming a bellwether of where youth voting trends are going… This [new] poll is really a chance for Xbox Live members to tell the presidential candidates... this is why were voting, this is why this election matters to us…

 

I thought [the Obama ads were] amazing. This is a community of over 14 million members. They’re active and engaged, they’re vocal. And it's not just about games and entertainment. They're also active and engaged and feel very stongly about the direction of their country… If Xbox Live was a state, it would be the seventh largest with 20 electoral votes.

[Rock the Vote] is very happy with how everthing is turning out. For Rock the Vote, they’re going to where younger voters are this election and this year they’re on Xbox Live. With Microdoft and Xbox, we know that the presidential election is important and we’re really trying to do our part to encourage turnout and for people to vote.

A press release touting Xbox Live's partnership with Rock the Vote notes that Barack Obama has a 12% edge over John McCain among participants in an XBL poll. 100,000 users took part, which, according to the press release, makes the XBL sample larger than Gallup, NBC and CNN combined. Of course, as Giant Bomb notes:

...they aren't pretending that it's actual science, because there are so many holes in this poll that it's impossible to take it as anything other than sort-of interesting. For example, as someone who has more than one Xbox Live gold account, I probably could have voted twice...

Still, it is a fascinating use of what started out a few years back as a space designed strictly for online gaming.

As far as the results, Obama's big lead is not especially surprising, given that XBL users likely skew significantly younger than the population as a whole. Here are the numbers:

• Obama \ Biden:                  43%
• McCain \ Palin:                    31%
• Undecided:                         13%
• Other:                                13%

Of more value than the polling is the impressive level of political engagement engendered by the XBL / Rock the Vote partnership. As the press release points out:
 

In its first two weeks of the program, more than 55,000 voter registration forms were downloaded through Xbox LIVE and xbox.com. Additionally, videos from the recent Democratic and Republican conventions were downloaded nearly 25,000 times.

 

To-date, the Xbox LIVE community has downloaded more than 350,000 pieces of program-specific content, ranging from candidate gamerpics to videos and Rock the Vote logos. That’s nearly five times the amount of people present at Barack Obama’s acceptance speech during the Democratic Convention in Denver.