Ladies Night: Crazed Gaming Moms Dominate Online

Electronic Gaming Business, Feb 25, 2004

You've heard the mumblings in recent months about how women predominate in the world of online casual games every bit as much as men rule the hard-core world. But who knew just how addicted and potentially lucrative this segment really is? America Online/Digital Marketing Service's "Casual Online Gamer Study" buries a number of myths about the demographics of gaming generally and the "casualness" of casual gaming specifically. Forget those visions of rabid teen boys with fingers welded to their PS2 controllers. Just try to pry mom's fingers from that game of Bookworm.

Women over age 40 are the casual gaming hardcore, racking up an average of 9.1 hours a week of game play, according to AOL's extensive study of over 3,000 active online gamers. Men across all age groups spend 6.1 hours gaming while women of all ages average out to 7.7 hours. And when it comes to frequency of play, mature ladies pretty much blow away other demos, with 41% playing every day, far ahead of every other group.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the AOL research is how ritualized online gaming has become, especially among adults. Nearly a third of gaming women play every day, and the drop off to lower levels of frequency is striking in most demos. The point is that games have become much like news content for many adults, a habitual part of their daily media consumption. There are tremendous implications for this, because it suggests that these "casual gamers" have great loyalty to their games and perhaps to their providers. As in all media, that loyalty translates into marketing potential. These are audiences that advertisers can expect to return to a given site or game and to be confident about the host.

While many game portals bombard users of free games with interstitial advertising and pop-ups, we have to wonder whether the less intrusive sponsorship model would work best with audiences that show this kind of habitual behavior. Bolting an advertiser's brand onto a specific game would guarantee repeated exposures. And given a user's loyalty to specific games, online providers should consider letting advertisers sponsor and permanently brand downloadable versions of a user's game. Despite user loyalty, casual gamers do not stick to only one online game. Most of these gamers play between three and four different titles a month, with teens being the most adventurous (4.3 titles a month).

Prime Time is Game Time

Casual gaming follows TV media patterns, with 88% of adults saying they play during night hours, with the peak coming between 8 pm and midnight. There is more game play going on at home, according to this study, but AOL's numbers may be skewed by the sample, with fewer of its users probably having access to the full AOL service while at work. Even so, 52% of adults say they play at work, although 75% say they play most often at night. Game portals generally tell us that lunchtime gaming is one of the usage peaks. Because of this we think game portals should be experimenting with some of the same "day parting" ad packages as more highly evolved media like CBS MarketWatch and NYTimes. These news sites have had some success pitching their heavily office-bound audiences to advertisers, because the Web is one of the only media that effectively reaches into the at-work hours. Packaged goods and fast food merchants often buy into these daytime slots to get their products in front of consumers while at work and while they are deciding on what to do for dinner.

Games...Take Me Away

Understanding motives and tastes within the casual game audience ultimately is the key to designing games across all platforms that attract the diverse and massive demographics represented here. The AOL study reveals a remarkable therapeutic value to gaming among adults. The most striking number may be in the chasm between the 54% of adults who say they play games to relieve stress and the 20% of teens who play to unwind. This suggests a tremendous difference in taste and motivation between the casual adult gaming target and the younger segment that generally represents the core game demo. Clearly, if major console game publishers want to grab the casual gaming market, they will need to design for that audience in radically different ways. Unlike many core console game experiences, which tease adrenaline, casual gaming is about the opposite. If we think of some of the most successful recent online games, like Pop Cap's Diamond Mine and Bookworm or ShockWave's Magic Inlay, there is a zenlike routinized play, a kind of hypnotic regularity that soothes the senses rather than heightens them. Again, this therapeutic quality is most valued by women 40 and up.

Online Casual Game Play Frequency
                      Adults  Teens  Males  Females  Fem <40  Fem >40
At least Once a week  83%     90%    80%    85%      81%      89%
Every Day             30%     22%    26%    32%      23%      41%
4-6 days/wk           15%     22%    12%    16%      16%      16%
3-5 days/wk           16%     17%    15%    16%      17%      15%
2 days/wk             13%     18%    15%    11%      13%      10%
1 day/wk              10%     10%    12%    9%       12%      7%
<1 day/wk             17%     10%    20%    15%      19%      11%

Why Do You Play?
                   Adults  Teens  Males  Females  Fem <40  Fem >40
Fun                79%     82%    74%    82%      82%      82%
Alleviate boredom  58%     53%    57%    59%      63%      55%
Relieve stress     54%     20%    48%    57%      51%      62%
Competition        31%     34%    35%    29%      26%      32%