Mele’s Musings

Changing Video Gamer Demographics

They ain’t playing Resident Evil 4, but the picture you have of a gamer in your head may not reflect reality.

picture: newsimg.bbc.co.uk

Article excerpt: Move over, guys. Mom wants to play. It has been years since the stereotype of teen boy video gamers in the US was wholly true. Most video gamers are adults, and have been since the turn of the century. The percentage of women who are gamers has also been on the rise, so much so that they have dominated casual gaming (think Bejeweled and Scrabble) for some time. Just over half of casual gamers are women, according to the Casual Games Association’s “Market Report 2007.” And the association said that nearly three-quarters of casual gamers who pay for their games are female. This demographic shift has not escaped the marketers who target such gamers. Now video gamer demographics are changing yet again. Nintendo has sold more than 10 million Wii consoles by expanding the audience for video games, according to a July 2008 Associated Press (AP) article. About 28% of the 70 million owners worldwide of the company’s handheld DS are female, most of them adult women. Large numbers of adult women and families now use consoles, and are playing more than casual board games on PCs.
The rest: eMarketer.com

Musing: Most video gamers are adults – not kids – is the first interesting tidbit. The second is that 40% of gamers are women 18 and older – only 18% of gamers are boys under 17. So, unless you are a game developers, how do we need to think about these stats? First, there was a lot of chatter several years ago about in-game advertising, which is still pretty small. Or is it? The truth is that advertising in casual games – rather than console games – is actually quite a big business. If you want to reach women, at work users, or users who are in the mood for a quick break or distraction, casual games are a great place to do it. The second is that advertising for and around video game entertainment needs to evolve beyond the stereotypical 18-21 year old male. When thinking about who to target and how for video games, we need to think more broadly and more holistically. My strong belief is that there is a vast audience for this type of advertising beyond entertainment sites.