Rarely do you walk into a video game store and see many game titles catered exclusively for the female game audience. There is virtually no big box support for such titles as they spend millions of dollars catering exclusively to male audiences. After all, conventional wisdom would suggest that since only games for males are being made, that only males are interested in playing video games. This couldn't be further from the truth, a fact often overlooked by larger game publishing companies such as EA, Activision or Take-Two. The statistics alone disprove the notion that girls are not interested in spending time playing video games. The Sims is the best selling game of all time and a large amount of its success can be attributed to its loyal female fan base. 40% of all girls in Australia that participated in a survey admitted to spending time online playing video games as well. This is a global trend that as more game enabled devices are available, so does the potential audience for your products. From personal experience I can attest to the power of focusing on the female gamer audience and the amount of success it can bring to your game portals. Hopefully this article can shed some light on what you can do to acknowledge the female audience and entice them to use your product.
Understand Your Audience
This would be common sense regardless of any type of video game or interactive content you would develop but due to the lack of exclusively developed girl titles how would you go about starting? The answer isn't necessary waiting on a shelf of a game retail store but rather online on a games website or games portal.
Depending on the age range of the female audience you will find some games more popular than others. These games usually have simple and easy to learn game play factors that most professional game developers would consider basic or even in some cases downright primitive. Don't be fooled by this or dismiss this fact. Its a mistake that many game developers make and hold against working on such games that would otherwise be something the female audience would be interested in.
One of the most popular games website with young girls would be StarDoll.com which is essentially a online paper doll website. Moving various clothing items on a 2d doll is a very simple thing to develop if you have any professional game experience. It is this very simple game mechanic combined with variety of various current celebrities and other incentives that encourage millions of users to return every day to that website.
Dress up games are some of the most popular games with girls with thousands of web game portals devoted exclusively to this genre of game. Other game categories that are popular with female gamers include pet games, makeover games, cooking games and room makeover games. Some of the most popular games with girls may have combined elements of these game categories providing an even more compelling game experience. Almost all of the games popular with the female audience would be categorized under Casual Games.
Doing your homework on what works out there currently on the Internet will help you understand an audience that might be decades younger than you personally and completely different than your own personal preferences for games. It is a challenge you must embark upon to fully capitalize on this market segment and achieve success.
The Online Factor
One of the game categories not mentioned previously are quickly becoming the most popular. Online worlds provide an experience where they can socialize and meet new friends. Important game elements of online worlds would include; the ability to have avatar customization, personalize user rooms and the ability to chat and meet new friends. Some examples would be Club Penguin, Habbo Hotel, There.com and IMVU.
Major companies are taking notice of the immense popularity of online worlds with the female audiences and now feature many similar game elements. The key for anyone looking to compete in this field is to come up with a compelling game mechanic that entices this key demographic of female users.
This type of game might be out of the reach of many small time developers but any game starts modestly so this might be a long term goal for you to reach. Never discount any game idea entirely especially as it can help you in developing some uniqueness. Sometimes combining existing game ideas in a online setting can help set it apart from what is available currently.
Making It Unique
Regardless of the size or scope of your game websites, an important aspect to realize is that uniqueness will help stand you apart from the competition in a very crowded market. My games portal for example specializes in browser based online worlds which require no registration. The benefit of this is you can immediately introduce your user to your game product without having them register or download anything. Consider introducing a unique element such as this into your game or website and you will of taken the first step to capturing some the fastest growing gamer demographic out there.
Utilize The Female Gamer Demographic
Accepting and embracing the fact that your games website caters to female gamers is a very important and strategic move that should be planned for in any games portal website. The market share is so large that the chance you will find success and as an independent developer raises if you do so. This is not the first choice for most professional game developers but I am one hundred percent certain this is the right direction to take a small games website if you want to attract a larger audience. The games you make don't always have to be exclusively made for a female audience but I think they deserve some consideration.
Hopefully this has shed some interesting light on the often neglected market demographic of female gamers and brings about some success in your endeavors.
Derek Young co-owns Switchin.net which receives 1.7 million unique visitors a month. With over 5 years of professional game development experience he can always point you towards some good online girl games
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