Analyst: Most Mobile Players Are Women, Prefer Social Games

A new study from EEDAR reveals that women gamers are dominating the increasingly important mobile market and that most of them are interested in playing multiplayer and social-enabled titles.

The report shows that 60 percent of all mobile gamers are female and that 63% of those are interested in games which involve interactions with other players, either in head-to-head multiplayer or in wider social spaces.

The men who play social games seem to be more interested in single-player experiences, with just 52 percent of those who responded to the EEDAR survey interested in multiplayer and in social games.

The analysis firm suggests that mobile game developers should try and target women gamers because they have a higher chance of actually telling others about their gaming habits and inviting them to their favorite titles.

Jesse Divnich, who is an analyst working for EEDAR, has stated, “What we are finding is tapping into that female client is more important than ever before. It really is changing the face of gaming.”

Travis Boatman, who is a vice president at Zynga, added, “What has changed with these new touch-screen devices is that it has made much more accessible to everybody. Women gravitate to games that were designed for the platform because they are much more intuitive to them.”

EEDAR has surveyed no less than 2,491 active mobile gamers aged between 15 and 64 in order to get the data.

The mobile and social games space is becoming more important than ever even for traditional publishers, who have so far focused on home consoles and the PC, because of the increasing number of smartphones and tablets which have the ability to support solid games.

Recently, Electronic Arts has announced that its PopCap studio would refocus in order to create mobile-only titles.