Ars Technica reports: How many Americans play video games? As it turns out... most of them. The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released a new report (PDF) that shows 53 percent of all Americans play some form of video game on some kind of device. That could be a quick game of Tetris on a cell phone, Call of Duty 4 on a PC, or LittleBigPlanet on a PS3, but the wealth of experiences and possibilities for game play may be part of the hobby's universal appeal. The biggest gamers are young adults, but that may change as time goes on; this report is a snapshot of an industry in motion. 

Across all demographic groups, around 20 percent of respondents play games at least once a day. That is, until you look at seniors, where 36 percent of respondents game at least once a day. Gamers: you have something to look forward to as you move towards retirement age. What this information doesn't tell us is what kinds of games are being played, but we'll guess it skews more towards MineSweeper than geriatric wards filled with games of Left 4 Dead.

The trappings of your gaming habits also change as you get older, which shows that convenience is a large factor for adult gamers. The data here seems to suggest that adult gamers use the devices they already have to play games, while younger gamers are more likely to have dedicated gaming devices. For example, 13 percent more teen gamers play on consoles rather than desktops or laptops, while adults are 20 percent more likely to play games on a desktop or laptop computer than a gaming console. The trend also follows with portable devices: teens like portable gaming devices, while adults prefer to game on their cell phones. 

What may not be as obvious is that teen gamers do more gaming on the go. 62 percent of teen gamers use portable systems such as the DS or PSP, and 50 percent game on their cell phones or PDAs. Only 35 percent of adult gamers game on their cell phone or PDA, and 25 percent game on portable systems.

You have kids? You game. You grow up? You take it offline

Parents have an excuse to buy games and systems, and they take advantage of it: parents are 19 percent more likely to play games on a console, and 10 percent more likely to game on a desktop or laptop computer. Younger parents are also more likely to make gaming a family affair, as 40 percent of parents aged 40 or younger play games with their kids.

Older gamers also don't seem to be drawn into online gaming as much. 79 percent of teen gamers play games online, while only 43 percent of adult gamers play their games online. Unfortunately, there was no study cross-referencing ability to put up with the stupidity of others, which is the most important trait needed to be a successful online gamer.

Surprisingly, only 9 percent of total gamers play MMO titles, with young adults more likely that older gamers to play MMO games. This is bad news for companies hoping to compete with the monolith that is World of WarCraft; if only a small percentage of gamers game in virtual worlds, the massive success of Blizzard's game may have taken the vast majority of the market for the forseeable future. 

While it looks as if game play drops as you get older, this is a still picture from an evolving industry. Will today's 18-year-olds be willing to give up games as they get older? Younger parents are more likely to game with their children, and those children may hold onto gaming as a hobby throughout their lives, with many of them gaming with their own children.

It would not be surprising to see much of this data flatten out if the same questions were asked twenty years down the road. Games are just now starting to become a large part of many people's lives, and while free time may get scarce and you may game more on your PC than a console as you get older, our children today will almost certainly become gaming adults. 

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