The data just isn't that useful, or interesting generally. Without a clear picture of what platforms they're playing on, what genres they are playing, and what specific games those might be, it doesn't generate any new insight.
On the level of pure personal interest, it makes it clear that the population at large plays a lot of games, but that's something we were already very aware of in terms of gaming as a whole. However but there's a fairly considerable difference between some light gaming via a free app installed on your phone, and someone playing on premium release, on a dedicated gaming device. These are essentially different markets. There's not neccesarily an overlap between the two. Someone that plays mobile titles, isn't neccesarily interested in playing games on a PC. As such the data generated by these ESA investigations misses a lot of insight that I'm sure a lot of people would value.
For instance, it's obvious everyone is interested in the gender split, but what presence does gender each have across different platforms of genres? I would argue that mainstream and independent console and PC titles games are slowly becoming more progressive with their representations of both genders and sexuality, is this affecting the games people play? Is this making the platforms more appealing? I feel that everyone in the industry is fully aware that it's a billion dollar industry, enjoyed by people of both genders and diverse age groups, but unless the report reflects how these trends are changing - both year on year, and by gender / age subgroup - then it's not really telling us anything especially interesting.
I'm not saying it's worthless, it has valuable bits and pieces, but what are our takeaways from this report relative to 2016s? That's not clearly presented, and what is presented, is quite limited in its scope, which is a shame.
As somebody who worked at GameStop for several years, I question this statistic. So many kids would come in on their own to buy games and parents almost never cared about games being rated M. They basically treated games as a way to keep their kids busy.
While your anecdotal report in and of itself, doesn't hold considerable weight, I think it's likely that it's the result of a response bias. Parents tend to be especially defensive when it comes to how they raise their child, and it's likely they often - unconciously or conciously - missrepresent the truth because of the surrounding social factors. Respondants often provide the answer they believe is what they should do, rather than what they actually do.
I don't think there's anything on the ESA website that helps us understand any measures they might have taken to minimize this. Generally speaking if you just send out thousands of surveys, you're data quality isn't liable to be that high, and you're simply hoping that the sheer weight of the data compensates for that. With that said, elements like a considerable liability for response bias will still slant the data, and that's quite possibly what we're seeing on some of the questions related to parenting.
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