The ESA doesn't really have any particular motivation to fudge numbers politically towards either liberal or conservative, but without seeing the study it's obviously hard to tell how they came up with those numbers. It's unclear what their definition of "gamer" even is in this context. People who occasionally play video games? Regularly? People who call themselves gamers?

It needs to be pointed out: the claim is "In this study, we got this particular result". The claim is not "this is representative of all gamers, everywhere.

@kbelder - Is it generally said/known(?) that males lean conservative?

@GEdgar especially with a lot of conservatives not being Trump voters

@kbelder a very good point, though it depends on definition of 'gamer'. When one includes so called casual games then both sexes are pretty fairly represented, if I remember the last studies I saw correctly. However, if one excludes casual gamer then there is a heavy lean towards male, and I've seen other studies confirming males lean conservative. So if one assumes the used a 'non-casual' definition of gamer that could may explain the lean conservative.

@dsollen Did you come across valuegamers.com/analysis/… in your search? It's unsatisfying in some ways, and won't fully answer your question, but I suspect that it's one of the better answers possible.

@BruceWayne and others, re whether men lean conservative: It’s at least very well-documented that in American politics, men lean Republican: see e.g. the second graph here for the gender split in elections since 1972. In particular, in 2016, men favoured Tump over Clinton by 12%. (My impression is also that men are believed to lean conservative more generally, but that’s of course a much less well-defined claim.)

@kbelder Games are a pretty even split of about 50/50 male-female

I'm doing my best to refrain from a gamers rise up joke.

@dsollen why would that "explain why they lean conservative"? The typical "games are violent, conservatives are violent, therefore gamers are conservatives" fallacy? Which is bonkers. Gamers come in all shapes, sizes, and ideologies, as does the rest of the population.

and oh, if these numbers are correct they seem to reflect pretty well the general makeup of the US population.

@jwenting How is freecell violent?

@HagenvonEitzen you tell me, but I've heard enough people calling out that "videogames incite violence". Maybe they refer to the urge to throw your computer out the window when you've just failed at something for the thousandth time in a row?

Keep in mind that the average age of the gamer nowadays is closer to 30.

@jwenting huh? I don't see where you got that conclusion at all. As I said if there is a decent lean towards males in gaming, and a decent lean towards conservatives in males then together would explain a lean towards conservatives in games. At no point did I mention violence in either of those statements.

@DavidGrinberg I appreciate links to justify claims, but it's best to use links that other's can read without paying subscription fees :P Despite not being able to read the article though I suspect I already addressed it. The rise of females in gaming is mostly due to 'casual' games, which some hardcore gamers refuse to count as gaming. if the study went with the older/more 'hardcore' definition of gamer, one that excludes casual games, that would lead to a strong male lean still. It's a problem of definition, and without finding the original study it's hard to know which they used...

@BruceWayne I appreciate your link to provide proof, and I agree with the general statement, as I've seen the trend shown in other elections as well. but the nitpick statistician in me feels the need to point out that the Trump election is probably a bad example. Gender politics was pretty huge in the last election, with the potential first female president on oneside, and on the other side a man accused of having...less then ideal interactions with females. This could easily have pushed females to be far more likely to vote democratic this election then the average.

@MichaelW. Thank you very much for that link. Your right that I don't think it would be enough to warrant an answer on this question, but I find it quite fascinating anyways.

@dsollen I don't have any subscription, so don't know why you are getting paywalled. Also I think you are wrong about hardcore gamers, I do think there is a relatively even split.