Online video games: a favorite pastime of children and teenagers

Online video games are a type of interactive entertainment that is played on electronic devices equipped with a processor. Many of these online games, because they produce moving images with the ability to display on a screen, are considered video games. According to global statistics, today online video games are the main choice of players and the internet is the principal platform for play by users. The main feature of two-player and multiplayer online games is the user's high involvement and interaction in them, a feature that has made discussion of dos and don'ts important in the games industry. For this reason, knowing the statistical population of online video game players by demographic variables such as age, gender, place of residence and so on matters. This importance increases in the study and examination of the relationship between children and adolescents and the best online games, because these games, with the features of immersion and intense involvement, can have psychological and emotional effects.

In recent years the video game industry has had increasing growth and has even overtaken the cinema industry and Hollywood filmmaking. Every day much news is heard of the world's and Iran's best online games.

The number of girl gamers and boy gamers

According to the findings, 67.8 percent of children and adolescents either never play online video games, or rarely play. Among these, the share of the option "never" is 48.1 percent. In other words, half of the children and adolescents participating in the research have never played an online video game.

The figure below shows the extent of playing video games by gender. As can be seen, 61.8 percent of girls have played not only girls' online games but no online game at all. This figure among boys is 36.2 percent, and there is a 25.6 percent difference between them. Given the results, boys play video games more than girls. In general, in the past decade, the history of video games has become countercultural and their level of violence has increased. For this reason, perhaps the reason for the mentioned difference in playing the world's best games can be said to be girls' lesser inclination toward violence.

The turnover of online video games

In 2020 the turnover of online video games amounted to more than 180 billion dollars. 72 billion of this amount relates to iPhone and Android mobile video games. It is predicted that this figure will reach above one hundred billion dollars in 2023. In 1399 (2020/21) this amount for Iranian gamers reached more than 1,500 billion tomans, which was considered striking growth.

Iranian video games

According to research by Iran's Center for National Plans, 51.9 percent of Iranian children and adolescents play Iranian online games. According to the image below, the statistical population was asked whether they play Iranian Android or computer games, and the answers were collected on a seven-part scale.

The playing of new online video games by children and adolescents based on place of residence shows that children and adolescents who live in urban areas, compared with their peers who reside in rural areas, are more interested in computer games. But the noteworthy point is the smaller percentage difference between these two groups in playing Android video games, relative to other internet-based entertainment behaviors such as watching video and so on.

According to the statistics on playing Iranian online games among the country's children and adolescents by the country's provinces, 63.6 percent of children and adolescents in Sistan and Baluchestan Province have never played internet games. This figure is the highest among all provinces. Also, 15.5 percent of children and adolescents in Kermanshah Province almost always play online video games, which is the highest percentage among the provinces. Given the nationwide average, children and adolescents in Kermanshah Province have said more than twice the national average that they almost always play online computer games. In Sistan and Baluchestan Province as well, 15.5 percent more than the national average of children and adolescents have never played two-player or group online games of football, Mafia, chess and so on.

The age of gamers

One of the demographic variables in the research is age. In the present research two age groups, 9 to 12 and 13 to 17, have been separated. 9- to 12-year-olds are children and 13- to 17-year-olds are adolescents. Given the findings, adolescents have played online video games a little more than children. Gamers of online games now, more than any other device, use mobile phones and the best high-quality iPhone and Android mobile games. Today, with the spread of smartphones and their possibilities, such as users' dedicated access, the breadth of access and so on, the definition of concepts such as childhood, youth and adulthood has been transformed, and many of the experiences that in the past were defined in accordance with these concepts have today been broken apart.

Conclusion

In recent years and after the coronavirus pandemic the number of gamers has increased to 36.4 million people. This statistic shows that about half the country's population is engaged in online video games. This upward growth of mobile game downloads, the purchase of game consoles and the growth of VOD traffic has also occurred in the world. 88 percent of Iranian gamers use mobile game downloads, 25 percent computer games and 18 percent a game console. 77 percent of Iranian gamers play using a mobile phone and 20 percent a computer and 31 percent a tablet and 18 percent a home game console and 11 percent a laptop and only 2 percent a handheld game console. Today, following the industrialization of video games, no attention is paid to the entertainment aspect of games and their nature. In this midst independent games, away from the sidelines, with the aim of entertaining the gamer, have an opportunity to grow.