Questionnaires were completed by 5th-, 8th-, and 11th-grade public schools students in rural and suburban school districts and by undergraduates at two universities in the United States (n = 1,242). They were asked about their orientation to video games--the amount of time they played, their motives for doing so, and the game types they preferred--to better understand the context in which effects research might be organized. The conceptual schema for this research was the uses-and-gratifications perspective. The males in the sample played video games at twice the weekly average of the females, were consistently stronger in all measured motives than the females, and preferred physically oriented video games over the females' preference for more traditional, thoughtful games. Younger players opted for the fantasy motive in their playing and older players more so for competition. Preference for physical games declined among the older males, and generally motives were stronger in the middle years of playing for both males and females than in the youngest and oldest age groups. Regression analyses explained considerably more variance in game playing for males than for females. (Contains 7 tables.)