Casual games attracting more women to industry

PC-based titles on Internet proving to be popular among female players

You might think that the face of one of the hottest areas in gaming right now is a young male in his 20s who owns the latest supercharged gaming system from Microsoft or Sony – or both.

But you’d be wrong.

Instead, the epitome of the new-era gamer is a woman in her late 30s or early 40s who plays on an average PC.

Yes, the video game industry seems to have been turned on its head.

For years, the dominant themes have been faster game machines, increasingly realistic graphics, more immersive gameplay, as well as the old standbys – blood, guts and blowin’ stuff up.

But that picture has begun to look increasingly outdated. While young men dominate the gaming industry as a whole, casual games are one of the fastest-growing parts of the industry and attracting a whole new demographic.

One of the fastest-growing parts of the game industry is centered on so-called casual online games, PC-based titles that users can generally start playing in minutes and usually don’t require the mastery of some combination of multiple buttons to enjoy.

The upheaval has spread to the console market, as sales of Nintendo’s Wii console and DS handheld, both of which stress fun-to-play games over powerful processors or realistic graphics, are far outstripping their supercharged competitors from Microsoft and Sony. Meanwhile, the list of top-selling games for consoles or handhelds are dominated by family and non-traditional titles.

“There’s a huge business to be made,” in casual games, said James Lin, a financial analyst with MDB Capital in Santa Monica.

The market for casual games is still a fraction of the total game industry, but it’s growing considerably faster.

The growth is being fueled in part by the rise of broadband Internet access, which has allowed game developers to bypass brick-and-mortar retailers. Instead of a small handful of casual games that consumers might find at their local Wal-Mart or Gamestop, the average online game site – unconstrained by shelf-space concerns – offers hundreds of titles.