Abstract

Sports video games rank among the most successful products of the game industry. Yet, very little is known about the players of sports video games resulting in a blind spot for media and video game research. Little is known about how sports video game players fit their games into a larger sports-related context, and about how their video game play informs their media usage and general sports fandom. The following empirical online investigation is an answer to this research gap, providing one of the first large-scale data sets detailing who the sports video game players are. Through an online survey of 1718 participants, general demographics of sports video game players, their habits and activities were investigated in the early 2011. While, until now our knowledge about players of sports video games has been based on anecdotal evidence or extrapolated from wider surveys of game players, this study demonstrates that there are interesting and important differences demanding further study.