Casual gaming attracting female players

The so-called casual gaming market is now regarded as the new growth area in the field of online gaming with female players, especially middle-aged, driving its growth.

This market trend is not lost among major game distributors in the country, two of which took the virtual wrappers off their respective casual games last week.

NetGames Inc., publisher of the massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) Khan: The Absolute Power and Flyff, has introduced another MMOG called Pangya from Korea-based HanbitSoft.

Pangya is a simple and fun casual game about golf. The game apparently got its name from the sound created when the player hits something. It promises hours of stress-relieving, clean fun to gamers of any age or skill level.

Then came GoPets (www.gopets.ph) from Mobius.ph, local distributor of MMOG adventure MU Online, and the casual shooting game GunBound. GoPets claims to be the country’s first and only international friendship network that features virtual pets that inhabit a user’s desktop and behave like real pets.

According to GoPets Ltd., the creator of the game, each GoPet is a unique 3D companion, which makes its owner’s desktop its home. GoPets can leave their digital homes and visit the desktops of other GoPet owners. In their travels, GoPets visit their owner’s friends and families, as well as introducing their owners to other GoPet members who share similar interests.

"These traveling GoPets are messengers and ambassadors – they form the dynamic network of connections that comprise the GoPets’ social network," says Paul Co, product manager at Digital Media Exchange (DME), the parent company of Mobius.ph.

Women power

Based on recent industry studies, the market demographics for MMOG are still ruled by men, but casual games are now mostly being played by women.

Axel Kornerup, president of NetGames, simply describes casual games as those with gameplay that doesn’t require players to have technical inclination and is easily understandable to and played by even over 40 year olds.

"A casual game will usually take a person only five minutes to start enjoying it. Right now, we see that it is getting 70 percent of the market and the rest is for mid- to hard-core games," explains Kornerup.

Puzzle, card and casino-style games fall under the casual game category which despite being simple in concept can bring so much revenue potential to game makers. According to research firm Screen Digest, casual online gaming generated over £270 million in revenues last year, or 1.5 times the value of hardcore gaming, with up to five times more players.

These players are predominantly women, from young girls to bored housewives, reveals Screen Digest in its report "Online Gaming Markets to 2007 — The New Growth Opportunities."

Latest data from MSN games show that 63 percent of its current market is now made up of women, proving that this group is really starting to invade the male-dominated gaming world.

In addition, the US Entertainment Software Association has statistics showing that there are now more women players in the US than there are teenage gamers.

The report from NPD Group, on the other hand, found that among players aged 13 to 44 in the US, 53 percent are males and 47 percent are females.

Industry consultants believe the female segment of the market is so huge to be ignored so that there’s now a scramble to design games with female players in mind.

In bringing GoPets here, Mobius.ph believes it will enjoy commercial success not only because it can genuinely appeal to both genders, but also because it taps into the Filipinos’ insatiable social skills.

"Most games are suitable for specific market sets. We at Mobius.ph are taking a risk to address the female genre," says Jojo Anonuevo, DME senior vice president for channels and distribution.

While MU Online and Gunbound have an estimated 65 percent male members, GoPets’ market is projected to be made up of 88 percent females aged 12 to 35 or beyond. In about six weeks, the game has accumulated 10,000 registrations from casual gamers, Anonuevo adds.

Expectations are also high for Pangya which, Kornerup believes, can surpass the 400,000 players of Khan in two or three year’s time once it goes on open beta in November.

"Pangya will bring NetGames to the next level of over 50,000 concurrent users. Pangya is beating Ragnarok in the country and is the No. 1 game overall in Thailand and Indonesia, and in the casual game area in Japan," says Kornerup.

Ragnarok is estimated to have over 50,000 users to date.

As competition heats up, Anonuevo says it will take some time to tell what the market will be really like. "There are really good games coming in the market. But we feel we have some advantage as we know how to make casual gaming more fun," he says.

Meanwhile, DME also launched MobiusOnline (MOL), a payment system that allows members to top up Mobius games using their MOL accounts.

Members put liquidity into their MOL account using MOL ePoints, a prepaid currency which eliminates the need to have different prepaid cards as players can top up any of Mobius’ games using MOL ePoints.

With MOL, players can also convert their scores to eMOL points to buy more play time or merchandise. MOL will be available in over 10,000 convenience stores, variety stores and Internet cafés throughout the country.

Screen Digest projects the global online computer games market will reach £1.2bn by 2007. At present, the Philippines has a young but booming gaming industry with about half a dozen publishers and another two or three developers.