Hard-core Gamers Losing Their Edge

While World of Warcraft is by far the leading MMOG for men and women, the number of ways people can spend their money and time online has grown steadily.  By 2012 Ipsos projects online revenues will exceed $1.5 bln annually.  Game play has grown because let’s face it the graphics are totally sophisticated and realistic.  Now there are games that really appeal to men/women, young/old.

Figure 5 – Cross Segments – While male game players still hold a slight edge over the female gamers the numbers continue to shift.  And even though we think of younger kids as the ones who are playing for hours on end research shows that people of all ages enjoy the challenges of the games.  Source — ESA

Video gaming has become so popular that today players under 18 represent only one-quarter of the total audience. The new wave of systems, games as well as portable unit and smartphone games have hooked parents, seniors, moms/dads, young/old.  According to the hardcorers, games like The Sims were a waste of time, money and effort.  Bummer because the game has sold more than 100M copies.

Spore — the follow-on?   One million copies in three weeks. Hardcore gamers may spend more on their hobby.  But there are more casual gamers out there and they’ve  helped Nintendo eat Sony’s and Microsoft’s lunch. We have read accounts of senior executives who travel a lot taking their daughter’s pink DS system to relax on their flights.  That’s getting embedded into day-to-day life. The video game industry has really tried to be blind to the differences between boys/girls, men/women.

Games in the beginning were sexually neutral. Pac-Man, Pokemon, Sonic, Tetris, Super Mario and hundreds of other successes and failures were just ways to waste time. Problem was game reviewers and hardcore gamers were guys. You know…geeky, teenage, socially awkward dude who spent hours locked in his darkened, musty bedroom. In addition, the female market (young and old) was more difficult to quantify, tougher to reach, harder to win over.

Still is !

The early feminizing game efforts had pixies thrown in, Barbie traipsing around. Didn’t build much of a following. Lots of gals liked Lara Croft.  Our daughter enjoyed playing and kicking the crap out of every guy she came up against.  Mobile games, handheld games, casual game portals, casual MMOGs, online games and social games have finally given women  (young and old) options.  And they’ve grabbed ahold!

Wii helped women in general and moms in particular build demand for casual gaming. Suddenly game developers found that the fundamental difference between male and female gamers. Females like variety! They move from sports to music to role playing to shoot-em ups to war games almost seamlessly.  Women are much more comfortable today with technology.

Computers aren’t some geek guys’ plaything.  The fun and fervor of the game seem to be easier for the female to work through because they synapses are somehow just wired better than the male’s.  It’s no wonder that 40+% of the gamers are female and their interest is growing across all age groups.

Figure 6 – Female Challenge – It is often difficult for guys to think of women (young and old) being into the challenges of video games but studies show that females not only like game play but they are also very good.  Interest – as with males – covers all age groups.
Source — comScore

Whether it’s racing, puzzles, rhythm, adventure, strategy, MMOG or virtual world adventures the difference between male and female is seldom more than a few percentage points. The new games and platforms offer something that appeal to the entire family.

In the Floodlight – console and game developers continually strive to develop just the right mixture of excitement, action and challenge to appeal to game players and keep them coming back.  Men and women don’t outgrow video games…it just takes more work to find them.  Source – 20th Century Fox

When budgets are tight, it’s great to know there are gifts can be bought, given, used, enjoyed by everyone. Christmas 2008 wasn’t very rosy in a lot of market sectors and 2009 doesn’t look much brighter.  But at least you can go home this evening to play a game online or offline that blocks out the worries of the world…till tomorrow. It is a little humiliating though when you play your best and at the end your daughter smirks at you and repeats Gin’s (Catherine Zeta Jones) statement…“oh come on!  Askme how I did it.”

They just take all the masculine fun out of the game…