Popcap.com, a Web site that makes various online games available to users, noticed that the vast majority of its worldwide users were female. The precise split was 76% female and 24% male. Apparently, this is not an aberration, but the norm for online games, according to studies done by various companies.
In-game advertising company Double Fusion dug up numbers that supported this notion.
Jennifer McLean of Double Fusion said that "certain titles, and particularly casual online games, attract an increasing number of older females. On many of the larger casual sites 70% of the audience is made up of women between the ages of 35 and 54. For example, 75% of the one million plus subscribers to EA's casual online games are women, willing to pay the $5 a month subscription."
However, this does not shed light on the whole story. The International Game Developers Association delves deeper into this female/male split and profiles "casual," "core," and "hardcore" PC gamers.
Casual gamers tend to be females age 35 and older, and prefer word, puzzle, and card games such as Bejeweled and Hearts. These gamers mostly play games online and account for 10% of PC gaming revenues.
Core gamers tend to be ages 25-35, with no significant skew towards one gender. They mostly play simulation, racing, and education games like Roller Coaster Tycoon and The Sims. These gamers mostly play retail games, and account for 60% of PC gaming revenues.
Hardcore gamers tend to be males younger than 35, and prefer action and strategy games such as Halo and Half-Life. They mostly play retail games and account for 30% of PC gaming revenues.
The number of gamers ages 45 and older has grown 41% in terms of computer games purchased for personal use over the past four years.
Improved in-game advertising metrics measurement will help to make the gaming realm a more measurable and trackable environment for marketers who want to see just how effective their marketing efforts are. In the meantime, this demographic information should help marketers a bit in an industry that is expected to see $1.94 billion in advertising spending by 2011.
Sources:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004895
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