UK wargamers according to the 2016 GWS
It has been pointed out to me recently that I neglected to report on British wargamers. Tsk, tsk! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! How could I forget wargaming's homeland? Clearly, it's time to repair something. So here goes... The usual disclaimers apply, of course.
Wargamers from the British Isles make up the single largest group of respondents. Nearly 3500 filled out the survey. As we noted in previous years, whereas American wargamers are the oldest on average, the British wargaming population is just a bit above average. However, with almost 43% under 40 years of age, that can hardly be called a grey population. With that, the under 40s group is a tiny bit bigger proportionally than in 2014 and smaller than in 2015. I suppose that mostly shows that the group of respondents does change from year to year (and, in fact, 68% indicate they have not taken part before). Gender-wise, it stays the same from year on year with about 2% self-identifying as female and the rest, therefore, as male.
The age of discernment
For American wargamers, there seems to be a generation gap. At least, it seems that younger wargamers prefer quite different settings than their older counterparts. That seems to be the case here as well. It starts with hobby preferences. Older (*curseword* - I just realised that I fall in this group since my birthday last fall) wargamers think wargaming is most about:
- Playing the game (69%)
- Research (67%)
- Hanging out with friends (64%)
Younger wargamers, on the other hand, put the social aspects first (and if there's any future promise in wargaming, that's it!):
- Hanging out with friends (78%)
- Playing the game (69%)
- Painting and modelling (60%)
It's perhaps not surprising either that younger wargamers, going along with the now established trend, prefer smaller games. Skirmish or platoon level games are the number 1 preference overall, but younger wargamers put 'small skirmish with less than 10 models' second.
It'll be predictable by now that younger wargamers consider themselves, on average, more as sci-fant games than as historical wargamers. On our 7-point scale (0-6 with 0 as entirely historical and 6 as entirely sci-fant), younger wargamers give themselves on average a 4.2, while older wargamers inverse the numbers with a 2.4.
Favorite settings
No doubt the above is reflected in favourite wargaming settings. Let's see. The top 5 favourite wargames settings for older wargamers on the British Isles are (feel free to insert a drumroll...):
- World War 2
- Napoleonic Wars
- Dark Ages
- Medieval Era
- Ancient Era
Younger wargamers, on the contrary, prefer the following (fanfare?):
- Science Fiction
- Fantasy
- World War 2
- Pulp, Steampunk, etc
- Alternative History
As before, the Dark Ages and Medieval era are right behind, undoubtedly still reflecting the popularity of SAGA.
That's probably enough for now. There's more on my to-do list unfortunately. However, feel free to use the comments section to give me new ideas for questions to answer on this blog, or add to the list for the Great Wargaming Survey 2017!
