Habits of Play

Q: How many days in an average week do you play a video game of some kind and when you do play how long is your typical play session in hours?

Non-Christians tended to play slightly more frequently and for longer periods of time than Christian respondents.

Q: How many days in an average week do your children play a video game of some kind and when they do play how long is their typical play session in hours?

This graph excludes the responses of respondents that also indicated they had no children or none of their children played video games.

Christian children tended to both play less often and play for shorter periods of time. The difference in frequency isn't as significant but the duration of play sessions certainly is noteworthy. Christian children tend to play for only 67% as long as non-Christian children on average when they pick up a game.

Q: Do you feel your frequency of play or the length of your play sessions is excessive?

On average Christian respondents were less forgiving of very frequent play. A resounding 92.6% of non-Christians responded in the negative (disagree or strongly disagree) when asked if they played too often compared to only 75.4% of Christian responses. Inversely Christians were more than four times as likely to claim they played too often.

Both Christian and non-Christian respondents seemed less concerned by the duration of play time devoted to an average session of play with nearly twice as many 'No Opinion' responses. Even with these increased responses though, Christians still were far more likely to express concern over their length of play time.

Q: Do feel your children's frequency of play or the length of their play sessions is excessive?

These graphs exclude the responses of respondents that also indicated they had no children or none of their children played video games.

Non-Christian parents were much more indifferent to the frequency in which their children played games. Nearly three times as often as Christian parents non-Christians indicated they had no opinion on the subject of their children's play frequency. The same holds true for non-Christian opinons regarding the length of their children's play sessions but the difference with Christian responses is less dramatic.

Unfortunately due to the high levels of indifference by non-Christians on the subject of their children's play habits and the low total of non-Christian respondents with video game playing children the data is difficutlt to interpret. However, the difference between negative Christian responses and negative non-Christian responses to both questions excedes the difference in positive responses. So it might be said that Christians are more tolerant of longer play sessions than non-Christians.

Summary:

Given the data above we can make a few generalized statements about Christian and non-Christian game audiences. Christians tended to play less often, for shorter periods of time, and this was also true for their children as well. However, they also seemed more likely to be tolerant of the play styles of their children but not of themselves.

Non-Christians on the other hand were much less likely to indicate they had poor playing habits even though they played more frequently and for longer durations than Christians. They also were much more indifferent to the play styles of their children who also played more often and for longer than Christian children.

Given this analysis game designers should surely keep certain preferences in mind when designing for Christians. Christians will be more reluctant to play for long periods of time and to play more than a few times a week. Goals and objectives in games aimed for a Christian audience should therefore require less time to complete if the player is to have a fun and rewarding experience each time he or she sits down. Also, designers should avoid games that require the player to hop on nearly every day to maintain their status or possessions in Christian targeted games.