EEDAR’s recent survey indicates that 60 percent of mobile gamers are women. Also, 63 percent of female mobile gamers play social multiplayer games, compared with 52 percent of men who play mobile games.
The theory is now that women are the gatekeepers to what games are played at home, and that they are more likely to play multiplayer games with family members and are also more likely to send and accept Facebook game invitations. “What we are finding is tapping into that female client is more important than ever before,” says EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich. “It really is changing the face of gaming.”
These stats represent a significant shift in terms of who’s playing games since men dominated a decade ago and represented nearly 75 percent of all games, when consoles were the primary way people consumed games. “Maybe it was because of the nature of the adoption of technology… what you saw was the growth of a big base of male players. The games catered to them,” says Travis Boatman, senior vice president of mobile at Zynga. “But what has changed with these new touch-screen devices is that it has made (games) much more accessible to everybody.”
The asynchronous multiplayer of games like Draw Something and Words With Friends naturally led to a female majority. “And women gravitate to games that were designed for the (mobile) platform because they are much more intuitive to them,” says Boatman.
Women are even spending more time in Big Fish Casino, a Vegas-style game that includes Texas Hold ‘Em Poker and blackjack. “You would think Texas Hold ‘Em would skew male, but we are seeing 65 percent of the revenue coming from females,” says Paul Thelen, CEO and founder of Big Fish Games. “If you are building for mobile and you want to scale to the broadest possible audience of purchasers, you do need to absolutely focus on the female.”
Source: USA Today
