Most people can agree that video games have impacted culture, communication, and social interactions across the world. But how prevalent are they on the O’Dowd campus? 142 people responded to a survey focused around gaming and game culture at O’Dowd. The results have been collated and summarized here.
⅔ of respondents stated that they played video games regularly, with 30% of those people stating that they played video games at least once a day. 29% of respondents stated that they played video games one hour a day, and 20% said they played video games for double that time, with the number of respondents decreasing as amount of time per day increased.
55% of respondents stated that their preferred gaming platform was a PC or laptop, making standard computers the most popular gaming platform. They were followed by mobile devices with 39% of people saying they regularly used mobile phones to play games, proving against popular belief that the mobile gaming community is quite large. In the console war, Playstation and Nintendo were nearly tied around the 28% mark, with Nintendo ahead by one percentage point. Xbox lagged far behind with 8% of respondents stating they primarily used an Xbox console.
Surrounding gaming culture in general outside of the games themselves, an overwhelming ⅔ of respondents said they watch gaming videos on Youtube and Twitch. 30% of respondents said they consume content on other social media platforms, 16% of respondents said they browsed game forums, and 3.5% of people said they created video game content online. The last 30% of respondents said they do not keep up with gaming culture outside of games at all.
These responses show that casual gaming as well as content consumption on YouTube is very high. In addition, most people play video games on the same platforms they use to talk to their friends and complete their homework, and they tend to play for very moderate times. This reveals a gaming culture at O’Dowd that is very passionate but reasonable, and shows an example of school solidarity.
