Online gaming: A girl’s world
Who says women don’t game?
Maybe all of us haven’t discovered the joys of a good shooter (mmmmm, “Far Cry”) or the latest action title. But online games apparently are building a female audience.
Nielsen/Net Ratings, an Internet measurement firm, says more women age 35-49 visit online game sites than teenage males – or, for that matter, any other demographic group. Fifteen percent of online gamers were women between the ages of 35 and 49, while 9 percent were boys age 12-17.
Online games were popular with thirtysomething and fortysomething men as well, the ratings service said. About 14.4 percent of Web gamers were men age 35-49.
Across all age groups, the gender split for visitors to online game sites is almost equal, with 50.8 percent men and 49.2 percent women.
Nielsen/Net Ratings said its research showed that online games are what Webbies call “sticky”: Visitors to online game sites don’t just look at a few pages and go, but stick around a long time. Check out these statistics for the five stickiest games sites, according to Nielsen, in average time spent per person in May:
1. Slingo: 4 hours, 8 minutes, 38 seconds.
2. EA Online: 2 hours, 29 minutes, 40 seconds.
3. MSN Games: 2 hours, 26 seconds.
4. AOL Games: 1 hour, 51 minutes, 51 seconds.
5. Jigzone.com: 1 hour, 34 minutes, 50 seconds.
Welcome reminder on Xbox live
My favorite trend of the week: games that acknowledge that you aren’t always playing.
Xbox Live gamers just picked up the ability to send voice messages to people who they’re trying to add to their list of friends, which is a blessing when you’ve been on a marathon session and can’t remember the names of everyone who might want to play with you later.
A quick voice message explaining where the person knows you from helps to resolve that, especially if the invitation comes after you’ve been logged on for a few hours – or a few days – and your memory has quietly leaked away.
And in the “World of Warcraft” tests for that massively multiplayer online PC title, the new ability to send mail to players – including packages with items that may or may not have a COD charge, whether the players are online or off – already has affected how far you have to run to buy an item or coordinate raids with friends who are offline.
In summer, rock ‘n’ games
It’s summer, so that means it’s time for combination gaming and music events to sweep through the metro area again.
Sony’s celebrating the 10th anniversary of working with the Vans Warped Tour. In honor of the event, at the Gorge on July 10, a PlayStation Time Warp tent will have classic and future video games (presumably all on Sony systems).
Titles they’ll show include their upcoming puzzle-combat title “God of War,” which is generating some decent buzz. Oh, and there will be music, too, of course, from bands including NOFX and Bad Religion.