Casual Games – What women want

Dec 10th 2009 at 12:45 by Stevie Case

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Gaming has come so far since then that it’s tough to explain to the neo-gamers that have joined our ranks just what it was like. Indeed there were so few female hardcore Quake players that I could name most of them by handle to this day. It’s fair to say that female gamers were treated as a novelty back then, and lavished with attention when we were found. The casual games market as we know it didn’t exist, so there was no fallback position to point to for female gamers. 

As internet access spread and online gaming became mainstream, more women joined our ranks – most notably as casual gamers. Though the evolution has been gradual, female gamers have become a force over the last decade far beyond the cliché of the middle aged female casual player.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, this year 40% of all players are women, 43% of online gamers are women, and women over 18 years of age are one of the industry's fastest growing demographics.

Gaming has gone wide and women are undeniably a major factor. This shift is due in large part to accessible design, mainstream distribution, and most recently to new business models that lower gaming’s barrier to entry. In fact one of the biggest revolutions in gaming’s recent history is happening right under our noses – or our status messages, as it were.

The social gaming revolution is taking over – and bringing with it a diverse new user base of gamers willing to spend big bucks on their favorite games. These gamers aren’t ponying up $60 for the hot new title. They are choosing to pay real money for virtual currency, and then spending that money for virtual items in-game. Microtransactions –specifically small dollar purchases of virtual currency and items – are set to be a $1 billion business this year in the United States alone.

Farmville, a social game from developer/publisher Zynga on Facebook, is just the most recent massive virtual goods success story. Last month more than 60 million people played the game. Compare that to the number of units shipped of some of the biggest games of all time like Tetris (Game Boy) at 35 million, Super Mario Bros. (NES) at 40 million, or The Sims (PC) at 16 million – and these are cumulative units sold total, all time – the tremendous potential of social games becomes obvious.

According to Zynga, FarmVille’s initial audience was heavily weighted towards women 25 to 45 – a very traditional casual gaming demographic. Though the player base has diversified with massive growth, 60% of Farmville’s players in August were female. Most notable is that this predominantly female gaming crowd is spending money on Farm Cash and coins with which they buy virtual seeds, tractors, barns, and more. These items are not essential to gameplay, but they do enhance the experience and users are buying in droves. Zynga will generate more than $100 million in revenues this year, chiefly from the sale of virtual goods in a handful of social games.

Though this model is fairly new to western markets, virtual economies and virtual item sales have been making a huge splash in Asia for years. The game MapleStory from South Korean developer Wizet and Nexon has been a huge hit with more than 100 million subscribers globally. Though the game is free to play, virtual items sold in the game were already generating $16 million per month in revenue in 2007. It’s noteworthy that South Korea, the market that gave us MapleStory, is one of the only gaming populations in the world dominated by women with 69% of South Korean gamers being female.

The argument can be made that microtransactions lower the bar to entry, encouraging the game-curious to try new titles. With no financial commitment upfront, a more diverse crowd is getting hooked on the fun. The advent of the free-to-play model in the West is upon us now with the launch of several new titles through 2009 – 2010 that will rely entirely on virtual items sales for revenue. One of the most buzz-worthy is just-in-open-beta title League of Legends from Los Angeles-based developer Riot Games.

In July, Riot Games announced that LoL would be launched as a truly free-to-play game. All revenue will be generated by the sale of virtual currency and items using virtual economy technology from my company, Vienna-based fatfoogoo AG. LoL launches this winter as one of the first free-to-play AAA titles outside of Asia.

Only time will tell if this new model will draw female gamers to its more hardcore manifestations. However, this democratization of games clearly opens the door wider and diversifies the crowds that now call themselves gamers.