Women Gamers to double by 2010

So, gone are the days when games esp. online games were monopolized by kids and men. According to a recent survey report of video game industry’s trade group, 40% of gamers in US are women. Another interesting trend is the average age of gamers which has gone upto 35 years (Source: Womengamers.com, 18^th July’08). 40% women gamers, whoa that’s an impressive figure esp. when the general perception is that women prefer television or books more for entertainment as compared to anything else.

Gaming scene even back home for women is quite positive. Many Indian gaming companies are launching games targeted esp. towards women. Infact women’s attitude towards entertainment is changing quite interestingly. Unlike earlier days, not only women are seeking entertainment avenues to beat the stress of work and home but they are also open to trying out new platforms. No more women are glued on to only television soaps or the saas bahu saga, today’s women are trying it all, right from online music to movies to games. Now online games and Indian women connection seem very intriguing esp. when till few years back most of the Indian women used to forbid their kids from playing video games considering it be absolute waste of time and distraction from studies J.

Lots of Indian companies are launching women specific games especially to woo them considering women are the most important decision makers for most of the purchase decisions in a family. Here are some of the observations to substantiate this further:

• FX Labs recently launched its game named “Agni” in which the story revolves around a mother and a child. Infact they are heavily promoting this game and Malaika Arora Khan is the brand ambassador for Agni.

• Games2win has released close to 60 games targeted at women and has spent clore to Rs 4 crore on their development.

• Onlinerealgames.com and neodelight.com have got more than 50 women centric games and more interesting is the statistics of women subscribers on onlinerealgames.com. Approx 30% if its overall subscribers are women.

• Zapak has got a special section in its site for women known as zapakgirls.com and it has got different interesting games for women of different age groups.

• Lastly and most importantly, I as a woman consumer find online gaming to be a huge stress buster and I am seriously glued on to some of the games on Zapak and Games2win J

Online gaming industry in India is growing encouragingly and is projected to touch $100 million in India by 2010, which is already a $2.25-billion market globally. Women gamers are expected to double in this segment by 2010. Double in next 2 years and that too in such a non-conventional entertainment segment, way to go women!