PC Gamers Make Less Money than Console Players When They Grow Up, Survey Reveals

Tsing

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Kids who grow up playing video games on console hardware, such as those from Sony (PlayStation), Nintendo (Switch), and Microsoft (Xbox), are more likely to earn a higher annual salary on average versus those who grow up playing games on PC, according to the results of a recent survey of 1,001 Americans that was conducted to "shed light on how childhood gaming habits might influence adult achievement."

See full article...
 
Wait...wth! Candy Crush came out about 12 years ago, so a child of 8-12 would be 20-24, and they're making $69,000+ a year?!? Dammit, I need to force-feed my under-10 children candy crush all day, every day, and some more candies even after they say no more. I can't even....
 
That... sounds and feels like a bullshit statistic. Unless they mean PC gamers who had every PC ordered and paid for by someone else and never had to learn or look into tweaking upgrading or building a PC.

EFF you my passion for PC and PC gaming led to my ****ing career. And I make more than many in my age bracket and a hell of a lot more with my education background. :)
 
What if you grew up playing both consoles and PC games? And if you played multiple IPs?

Wait, so people who played FIFA are the highest earners among video game players? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Yyyeeeaaahhh, ALL of this sounds like bullsh1t. Hilarious read though!

EFF you my passion for PC and PC gaming led to my ****ing career.
Yyeeaahh, I have a looot of friends who grew up playing PC games (and console games, and arcade games), and they're all in IT cuz of their love for PCs and tech and video gaming, and they all make six figures.

I don't want to sound snobbish or whatever, but it always seemed to me that PC gamers tended to be better-educated and have higher-paying jobs vs console-only gamers. I may be making a generalization, I have no idea. Apparently I was wrong, if this data in this article is to be believed.

Candy Crush came out about 12 years ago, so a child of 8-12 would be 20-24, and they're making $69,000+ a year?!?
Candy Crush is not even a real f*cking video game, but some mobile crap!

You know, that chart was a weird chart to look at. What a weird set of data. This whole f*cking thing is weird. So these are survey results huh?
 
So how much is the average annual salary if you grew up without playing video games or consoles - or didn't contract the addiction? Or if you grew up occasionally playing Pong and still had enough time to play outside with all the other neighborhood kids?

Inquiring minds want to know ...
 
I'm wondering if the poll reads like:

Did you play console games? Yes/no
Did you play PC games? Yes/No
Do you make more money than your friends? Yes/No
Would you say you make Considerably more than your friends? Yes/No

Suddenly.. console gamers answer based on their ego... because lets face it... that's all they have...
 
Let me tell you a little secret, or not secret but the overlooked part. I can give important context.

When we were kids, only the rich kids had consoles, we couldn't even dream about a PSX or N64 or Dreamcast. The rich kids? They had all three.
A low end second hand PC was much cheaper than a console.

And games could be obtained through warez and through friends. Console games even when pirated cost money, burnt discs were prohibitively expensive to us, not to mention having to mod the hardware to load burnt discs, which also was a hefty up-front expense.

So it is actually PC gamers who come from poorer families, get lesser educations and worse job opportunities as a result.

Enthusiasts who play on hi-end gaming PCs are a tiny fraction of PC gamers, it's enough to look at steam surveys where IGPs are more common than high end GPUs.
 
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That... sounds and feels like a bullshit statistic. Unless they mean PC gamers who had every PC ordered and paid for by someone else and never had to learn or look into tweaking upgrading or building a PC.

EFF you my passion for PC and PC gaming led to my ****ing career. And I make more than many in my age bracket and a hell of a lot more with my education background. :)
Being an exception to the rule yourself doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that a data point is generally accurate. I make more than most people who don't have a high school or college degree. I don't even have my (G)ood (E)nough (D)ummy. I work in a technical field despite having no real formal training in it.

I know that this isn't the norm.
 
Being an exception to the rule yourself doesn't necessarily preclude the possibility that a data point is generally accurate. I make more than most people who don't have a high school or college degree. I don't even have my (G)ood (E)nough (D)ummy. I work in a technical field despite having no real formal training in it.

I know that this isn't the norm.
I'm in the same boat just have my GED.
 
I'd also add that I grew up playing console games because my parents couldn't afford a PC. Back when I was a kid a sub-$1,000 PC that could play games didn't exist. Hell I had one friend that was into PC gaming and that's only because his family could afford a PC and his dad worked in the software industry if I remember correctly. I got into PC gaming in early to mid-1990's. By then, I was 16 and living on my own and while I couldn't afford anything nice I've been a PC gamer ever since.

I've owned consoles throughout the years but they were always secondary gaming devices to my PC. Given the choice, I always opt for games on PC. I haven't bought a console since the XBOX One. I've not felt compelled to do so since then. Hell, I kind of regret getting that as its had by far the least amount of use out of any console I've owned.
 
What's crazy about this is that PC gamers are generally tinkerers. They might not be spending top dollar for their system, but they will be tinkering with their PC to get the best framerate-to-quality ratio. That implies critical thinking and creative problem-solving skills. Console gamers do not usually have to do much tinkering to get their games to work. Power on, put in disc, play, and repeat. Like Dan D, my first foray into gaming PC was in early 90s (graduated HS in '95) with Doom, Wolfenstein, Jack Nicklaus Golf, and Wing Commander. I had an old 486DX 33MHz with 8 MB of RAM (If I remember correctly...it might have been 4), that I bought from a friend for $250. DOS games were not easy to use, especially when you have memory limitations. Even with 95, you still had to tinker to figure out why your game crashed into a BSOD. My point is that people with higher critical thinking and creative thinking skills generally make more money, and PC gamers usually embody those traits.

And fsck Candy Crush.
 
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