‘Casual’ Interest Is Intense For Women

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Adolescent males are still largely perceived as the typical video gamer, but it is the 41-year-old female homemaker that many gaming companies are targeting today.


“The comments you see over and over go something like ‘I love this game. I take my kids to school and play for an hour and a half,’ ” said Roger Nall, founder of RedRoverGames.com, a Los Angeles-based casual game developer.


L.A.’s game companies have been pursuing women players increasingly for several years. The tide began to turn five years ago when Interactive Digital Software Association released surprising data that showed women accounted for 43 percent of the gaming population. Today, about half of the gamers who play at least once a week are women, according to a national study released in March by entertainment and television consulting company Frank N. Magid Associates Inc.


Women actually dominate the “casual games” market. These are computer or electronic games, such as “Bookworm,” “Text Twist” and “Bejeweled,” with simpler rules and engaging designs that require no special skills to play. They’re typically shorter plays and not plot-driven console games.


The numbers are unambiguous. More women aged 34 to 55 play casual games than teenage boys and young men do on consoles, according to the International Gaming Developers Association. A recent AOL Games survey calls women over 40 “obsessive gamers” who spend nine hours a week playing Web-based games compared to men who play six hours a week.


L.A.-based Yahoo! Games International knows this and offers an enormous amount of content for women gamers. The Yahoo! games site publishes about 300 games online and half of the players are women. They like games that don’t require hours of commitment or a long attention span, the company said.


“Most of the games can be played while you’re on the phone,” said Robert Nashak, general partner of Yahoo! Games. “They’re really good relaxation drivers, so that when you need to take a break after a busy day at work and with the kids, it’s available at the click of the button.”


One of the most popular diversions for women on the Yahoo! site is Electronic Arts Inc.’s “Sims Stories,” in which players can create characters by not only dressing them and giving them names, but also designing their homes, launching their careers and setting them up with spouses to build families.


“It’s interesting to see the differences in the way men and women play Sims,” said Mike Vorhaus, the Sherman Oaks-based managing director of Frank N. Magid.


“Girls build up families, build homes, and support friends. And guys go out dressing weird and going crazy.”


He said that games that emphasize order, cooperation, collaboration and creativity, and those that are competitive but not confrontational, seem to resonate with women. Vorhaus calls these the “right type” of games and not enough gaming companies are creating them.


Conversely, the market-dominating products among console games include “Socom,” a military assault game, or “True Crime,” where the object of the game is to carjack and kill rival gangs. Industry leaders who produce hard-core console games have yet to build their businesses around feminine tastes as the casual gaming companies have done.



Femme focus flawed?

L.A.-based THQ Inc. also produces a line of casual, quick-hit games through its Valusoft division that target certain female players. But THQ spokeswoman Liz Pieri said that she believes the “strategic imperative of targeting only women is flawed.”


“Our goal is to make great games,” Pieri said. “And we’re seeing more and more females playing in the key console and high-end PC genres we publish games in, from racing to open-world to real-time strategy games.”


Phaedra Boinodirus, chief executive of WomenGamers.com, which helps gaming companies develop products palatable to women, said the nation’s leading video game developers could be doing more.


“We really need to wake up,” she said. “Nobody wants to make that first investment because it takes years to develop a really good game.”


It’s less of a risk for producers of casual games, which require a relatively low production and distribution cost. Most casual games take about six months to produce and cost less than $20 a pop to buy.


Nashak of Yahoo! Games suspects that the casual game companies’ appeal to women was largely accidental. Companies that began creating simple games to play on the computer through a quick download realized that a bulk of the purchase activity was happening among middle-aged women, who have much more disposable income than teenage boys.


Still, these companies are not big players in the $7.4 billion gaming industry, which has tripled in sales over the past decade. In 2005, computer games accounted for only about $1 billion of total industry sales, according to the NPD Group.


Because women remain virtually untapped by a bulk of the gaming industry, L.A. Games Conference dedicated a panel discussion on the topic last month, said Ned Sherman, publisher and chief executive of Digital Media Wire Inc., which organized the event.


“There’s still a perception among the greater population that gamers are younger males playing hardcore games, whereas statistics clearly show that’s not the case anymore,” he said.


One reason for the shift is widespread broadband access, which has propelled industry growth while diversifying the gaming community.


As games become a mainstream form of entertainment, comparable to movies and TV, the divide between male and female will become less and less relevant, said Nashak of Yahoo! Games.


“The whole interest in the female gamer will seem like an anachronism a few years from now. As entertainment becomes more interactive, everyone will be considered a gamer,” he said.



Satellite connection

El Segundo-based DirecTV Inc., a leading satellite television company, is among the first to test the mass appeal of electronic games. The company made its name through its sports programming, but in its attempt to become a service for the entire family, DirecTV recently launched Game Lounge.


“Brain games,” such as puzzles and card games, are delivered live over satellite targeting mostly women age 34 to 55, along with some educational games for children. DirecTV subscribers can access the Game Lounge channel for $5.95 a month.


“Frankly, we saw it right away. More women are playing casual games than teenage boys and younger men. We crafted the overall service with that in mind,” said Steven Roberts, vice president and general manager of DirecTV.

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