King (www.king.com) is the world's leading online social gaming company, and home to more than 80 games played more than 196 million times a month as of January 2008. We attribute the majority of our success to an often overlooked demographic: the female gamer.
 
At the Casual Connect conference in Seattle in July, we highlighted this strength with an industry-first, live focus group of five women gamers, from 34 to 71 years old, who revealed to leaders of the $2.5 billion plus casual games industry:
 
■ Women play casual games 5 to 10 hours per day – significantly greater than the 7.4 hours per week determined by a survey by the Casual Gaming Association.
■ Competition, rather than simple relaxation or escapism, motivates them to play.
■ Though the sense of community the gamers have developed with fellow players at King.com was integral to their online experience, none had Facebook profiles and only two had MySpace profiles.
 
The growing clout of female players– and the revelations made through King’s research and by our panel at Casual Connect – have raised awareness of many developers of the power of women in gaming. Our findings fly in the face of the long-standing, misguided belief that the target audience of developers is socially maladjusted adolescent boys who relish role-playing video games when they’re not attending “Star Trek” conventions. Much as we have come to the realization that women are major players in casual gaming, other leading developers such as Activision and EA are realizing that paying more attention to female gamers is ultimately paying bigger dividends.
 
What’s most striking about our success is how it outlines the role of women in casual gaming.  Female players who are 18 and older represent one third of the game-playing population while male players who are 17 or younger represent only 18 percent of casual gamers, according to the Entertainment Software Association.
 
“My typical day,” said dedicated King player Coral Joy Parks, who is 47, “involves me rolling out of bed, going straight to the laptop and playing a game even before I've made my coffee."
 
And that isn’t half of it: Most women who are doubling down in a card game or guessing the capital of Bolivia in a trivia quiz are over 35, according to the Casual Gaming Association.
 
“You're seeing a new consumer that really hasn't been engaged in game playing,” said Robert Kotick of Activision. “The typical consumer is a 40-year-old woman who's playing casual games online.”
 
The female gamers point to many reasons for signing up with King. Some say they love to tap into their competitive nature. Others incorporate our site into their daily routine to blow off steam or take a brief break from life’s bustle. Others are drawn to the sense of connectedness that develops when players on opposite sides of the world join in a game of backgammon or familiarize themselves through King’s social networking component.
 
Gamer Katherine Reese of Sacramento explained that her interests are even more fundamental: the 36-year-old medical coding analyst bagged a cool $500 playing against pool ace Jeanette “Black Widow” Lee.
 
“It’s about fun,’’ said Reese. “And you have a chance to win money.”
 
What’s happening with online gaming – as in many segments online – is that women are making their presence felt. Some 45 percent of all MySpace users are over 35, said Rupert Murdock of News Corps, and “we have 40 percent of all mothers in America on MySpace.”
 
No longer are women regarded as some niche audience, as some specialized group to be treated like an oddity. And King, as much as any other company, is making that happen.
 
“King knows that women aren’t on the Internet just to shop,” Parks said. “We’re here to have fun. It’s gratifying to know that King want to please us and that they are helping the gaming industry understand us.”
 
Fast facts about King and female gamers:
■ King counts 6.5 million women among its 10 million users. Our company has grown consistently in a market that generated $2.25 billion in revenue in 2007.
■ Online casual games bring in 150 million women every month– roughly half the population of the United States.
■ Nearly two-thirds of women casual players online are over 35.
■ Playing casual games is often the first thing women do after waking. They check their ranking and play for on average of 2 ½ hours every morning.
■ Women engage in trivia games with the family members but play action games alone.
■ Most women players are married or in a relationship and have children.