In early 2010 PopCap games ran a survey, they wanted to know who the average gamer was, it was found that the average gamer was a 43 year old woman, with women comprising of more than half of the online gaming community with housewives particularly taking an interest it’s been proven that female oriented and friendly games are big business in this article I’ll take a look at the biggest and best in online gaming for women.
Free Casual Flash Games
There are an abundance of free online flash games at our fingertips sometimes it’s hard to find the good ones or the reliable ones, so firstly let’s cast our glance over a tried and tested game; some might say the grand-daddy of modern casual gaming:
Bejewled
Originally called Diamond Mine was created by three young men blissfully unaware of the dot com crash who’s only business goal was to create one game a month for their company PopCap, little did they know their first game would be the corner stone in a billion dollar empire, the game itself raking in a reported $500 million.
It’s also been reported that since it’s release over 798,000 years of game play have essentially been had. Making Bejewled one of the most popular and well loved Flash games on the internet and as it’s moved from a casual flash game to a networking game on Facebook with 60% of the players female it’s also the only Facebook game that has a game play age demographic of 36-45 as reported by socialshoppingnews.com.
Pogo
Next let’s look at another kind of casual gaming, rather than a single game - this is the phenomenon of the gaming site, Pogo.com. It offers players a full range of board, card, casino, puzzle and sport games and it’s owners EA have relied on it’s money making ability through thick and thin and have been able to boast higher game sales than Facebook on several occasions.
With free to play options slowed down by ads it’s easy to see why players opt in for the membership package which brings with it weekly badge challenges and a customisable Pogo Mini. Pogo tokens are won from playing and winning games and these can be traded in for Pogo Mini items or saved to boost a players rating! In a recent Job vacancy posting in Mashable.com EA states in the description: “Pogo.com is the top-ranked online casual game destination worldwide and the No. 1 stickiest online destination in the U.S.
The site averages 10 million unique visitors a month, who spend 4.6 billion minutes a month playing Pogo.com games.” Pogo is a great site for gaming and chatting, it brings together the enjoyment and non committal atmosphere of casual gaming and the feeling of community of RPG’s.
Zynga: The Home of Social Network Games
Facebook has proved itself in the past few years as one of the leaders in the online gaming industry, with Zynga.com taking the helm. Zynga, a company named after the founders dog, is a young company, but at only three years old is reportedly worth $5.5 billion, and with the likes of Farmville holding 60 million players in the palm of its compost covered hand that’s not so much of a shock.
There are several Farm, restaurant, shop, gangster and puzzle games available for free though in most for the full gaming experience people find it necessary to make one of purchases of tokens this is where a lot of revenue comes from. Zynga games and the people who play them live a rather symbiotic life, according to the Telegraph’s article “Zynga: 10 things you didn’t know” 80% of development on new games happens post release.
The developers also adjust the games in response to the players feedback. In fact in the same article it’s claimed that the staff are given a whole weekend to sleep before a new game release as they spend the next week with very little shut eye due to the huge influx of complaints, suggestions and other feedback. Zynga has a huge female community and its deliberate targeting of women can be seen in games like Frontierville which boasts quests where players attempt of get married and have children.
A Growing Market
These markets still in their youth have so far to go, with advertisers just realising the potential and more people playing social networking games than watching TV it's going to be amazing to see how and when they step up their game. Pogo.com is already moving into the Android and iPhone app industry and Zynga has already beaten all of it's past records with the new game CityVille.
Where will they go from here? some suggest they'll take use of the new motion sensitive technology to create massive action based Networking games while other pundits claim the fad will be short lived and something new will come along taking its place, either way it's obvious that game manufacturers for console and RPG's will take note of the success of Casual gaming and Social Network games amongst female markets and utilize this information in their own manufacturing.
References:
“SocialBuzz and Scoremaster Appear on This Week’s List of Fastest-Growing Facebook Apps by DAU” Social Shopping News http://socialshoppingnews.com/tag/bejeweled-blitz/
“Senior Product Manager, New Platforms, Pogo” Mashable.com http://jobs.mashable.com/a/jbb/job-details/415796
Barnett, Emma “Zynga: 10 things you didn't know about the social gaming company” The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8153498/Zynga-10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-social-gaming-company.html
Ashley Storrie - Ashley Storrie, popular podcaster and formerly Britain's youngest stand up comedian shares her film reviews, recipe's and passions!
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