Some Data
2009 U.S. demographic info:
* Gender breakdown: 50.4% women, 49.6% men
* Racial breakdown: 63% white, 15.8% Hispanic and Latino, 12.4% black or African American, 4.5% Asian, 4.3% “other” or people of mixed race (I dislike the term “race,” but it’s useful as shorthand. We’re all humans, part of the human race.)
In a fictional world where:
* Everyone has an equal likelihood of enjoying gaming
* Everyone’s on equal economic footing — IE, has time to worry THAC0 rather than putting food on the table
* There are no factors to consider other than gender and race
and gaming groups always include a GM and five players, you’d expect those five people to break down like this:
* Two or three would be women, the remaining two or three (depending) would be men
* Three of them would be white, two of them would be people of color (most likely, one would be Hispanic or Latino and one would be black or African American
In that same fictional world, you’d expect GenCon 2010, which had roughly 30,000 attendees, to have looked like this:
* 15,120 women, 14,880 men
* 18,900 white people
* 4,740 Hispanic and Latino people
* 3,720 black or African American people
* 1,350 Asian people
* 1,290 “other” or mixed-race people