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Nielsen: 17 Percent Of GTA Buyers Minors

17 percent of Grand Theft Auto IV purchasers were minors age seven to sixteen, according to a widely-reported Nielsen survey focusing on the game -- and 80 percent of those kids had the game bought for them by parents.

Leigh Alexander, Contributor

August 13, 2008

1 Min Read
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17 percent of Grand Theft Auto IV purchasers were minors age seven to sixteen, according to a new Nielsen survey focusing on the game. Of these, 61 percent of the young gamers bought the game on their own; 39 percent had "someone else" buy the game for them, said Nielsen as reported in game news site GameDaily. "Interestingly enough, parents/guardians were pegged as the biggest facilitators for getting the controversial game into the hands of these young respondents, garnering 80 percent of the response," said Nielsen. "Friends, siblings and other relatives rounded out the other 20 percent of the response." In May, the Federal Trade Commission conducted an "undercover shopper" survey that found kids sent into 253 different stores to buy Mature-rated games were turned down 80 percent of the time. Also among the findings in Nielsen's GTA IV report was that 25 percent of those who bought the game on Xbox 360 did so with that platform's exclusive downloadable content as a primary factor, while 64 percent said they just "prefer" the Xbox 360, according to GameDaily.

About the Author

Leigh Alexander

Contributor

Leigh Alexander is Editor At Large for Gamasutra and the site's former News Director. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Variety, Slate, Paste, Kill Screen, GamePro and numerous other publications. She also blogs regularly about gaming and internet culture at her Sexy Videogameland site. [NOTE: Edited 10/02/2014, this feature-linked bio was outdated.]

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