Female Gaming on the Rise
Online games appeal to young girls, older women
Marketers interested in targeting teen girls and leading-edge baby boomers may want to look at online gaming sites.
The total female online gaming site audience was up 27% in August 2008 over August 2007, to nearly 43 million visitors. Growth was even faster among female gamers ages 12 to 24 and 55 to 64, according to comScore Media Metrix.
"With the increased interest in online gaming among the highly lucrative teenage girl and older female demographic segments, marketers who have been hesitant to transfer some of their ad spend to the gaming space may now be taking a second look," said Edward Hunter, director of gaming at comScore, in a statement.
Gaming has become nearly universal among all teens.
comScore said that fashion and dress-up sites and virtual worlds such as Neopets and Gaia Online helped the category grow in popularity among younger girls. More older women visited gaming sites because of partnerships between women's content portals and casual game sites, such as iVillage's partnership with Pogo.com games.
Read more - eMarketer
Video Gaming Audience Is Fragmented
Diverse consumption patterns and different access devices, just like TV and the Web. What is your grandmother's favorite video game?
While that might have been an outlandish question even ten years ago, video games' mainstream popularity in the US means that more people of all ages are playing.
More than seven out of 10 US consumers now play video games of some sort, according to The NPD Group's recent "Online Gaming 2008" report. Of these, more than half say they play games online.
NPD's numbers agree with other sources. Two-thirds of US heads of households play video games, according to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA)'s "Essential Facts About The Computer and Video Game Industry" report. The ESA says that more than half of "frequent" gamers play online.
This means video gamers are a mass audience, right? Not quite. The term "video gamer" covers a wide range of gaming platforms and types, including PCs, consoles, mobile phones and other devices.
Moreover, online gaming, which holds special promise for marketers who want to reach gamers on an ongoing basis while they are playing, is similarly fragmented. Online gamers are no more a mass audience than are video game players in general, thanks to a profusion of game genres and a growing range of online game platforms.
Read more - eMarketer
Ad Spending Grows on News Sites, But...
Web future bright, print grim.
Ad spending on newspaper Web sites increased to $3.2 billion in 2007, up 18.8% over 2006, according to preliminary estimates released by the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) in late March. The trade group said that online ad spending accounted for 7.5% of all newspaper ad spending in 2007, up from 5.7% in 2006.
"Even with the near-term challenges posed to print media by a more fragmented information environment and the economic headwinds facing all advertising media, newspaper publishers are continuing to drive strong revenue growth from their increasingly robust Web platforms," said John F. Sturm, CEO of the NAA.
Continued growth in online newspaper ad spending is much-needed good news in the context of a well-documented decline in ad revenue for the industry overall. US spending on offline print advertising in newspapers fell by 5.6% in 2007, according to TNS Media Intelligence.
Read more - eMarketer
Majority of US Online Kids Are Gaming
Video gaming drives the online experiences of children ages 2 to 14, according to a new survey conducted by The NPD Group for the Toy Industry Association. According to the survey, 76% of US online kids used social networks and gaming Web sites.
Online buying patterns are set early. More than 28% of kids who use social networks, gaming and entertainment Web sites have purchased something from those sites—either a physical item or digital content.
"When we see that about 75% of kids ages 6 to 8, and over 90% of kids older than that are accessing online content, it is obviously an integral part of most kids' lives," said Anita Frazier, analyst at NPD.
"The implications and untapped opportunities for any business that considers kids to be an important consumer segment can be enormous," Ms. Frazier said. [eMarketer]
Super Bowl Viewers Blitz the Web
The Internet is becoming part of the Super Bowl viewing experience for many users. Three-quarters of US Internet users surveyed intended to go online yesterday, according to a comScore study conducted January 29th and 30th.Of those who planned to go online, most said they would do so before the game (82%) or after the game (61%). Nearly three out of 10 said they would log on during the game itself (29%) or during halftime (28%).
Super Bowl advertisers likely saw increased traffic to their Web sites, since 16% of respondents said they planned to visit advertisers' sites yesterday. Another 13% gamsaid they intended to watch Super Bowl ads or video clips online.
“There seems to be a greater inclination to access advertisers’ content online, which highlights the increasing importance of a cross-media advertising strategy," said Andrew Lipsman, senior analyst at comScore.
More than a quarter of respondents said they enjoyed watching the ads more than the game. Males, were more likely to prefer watching the game, while females were more likely to prefer the ads. [eMarketer]
Video Game Hits Keep Coming
US computer and video game software sales reached $9.5 billion in 2007, up 28% over 2006, according to final data compiled by the NPD Group and announced by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA). As NPD had declared previously, 2007 was a record year for US video game revenues.The ESA noted that "Halo 3," the best-selling title of 2007, took in more revenue in its first day of sales than the biggest opening weekend ever for a movie ("Spider-Man 3") and the final Harry Potter book’s first day sales.
"On average, an astonishing nine games were sold every second of every day of the year," said Michael D. Gallagher, president and CEO of the ESA. Approximately 267.8 million computer and video games were sold in 2007.
Read more - e Marketer
Video Game Market Stronger Than Ever
The struggle for video game market share seems to have been good for gaming overall."While I wouldn't count on similar growth in 2008, I would expect to see 2008 increase over 2007, with more growth (proportionately) coming from software sales," said Anita Frazier, analyst at NPD.
As for the consoles themselves, Microsoft's one-year head start on its rivals and popular online gaming service kept it in front.
NPD said that game accessory sales were up 37% to $621.6 million. The booming market is good news not only for video game marketers, but also for marketers and advertisers looking to advertise in the games themselves. eMarketer projects that about two-thirds of a billion dollars will be spent on such ads in 2008.
Chinese Video Gamers Get Virtual Goods
Video game market revenues in China increased 68% last year, according to Niko Partners' "2007 Chinese Video Game Market Annual Review & Forecast Report."
Internet cafes are integral to the industry in Asia since a lot of people do not have PCs at home. The report accounted for 20 million PCs in China's 225,000 Internet cafes.
The online segment brought $995 million in revenues, as players spent more money on virtual items and services.
Legitimate sales of PC offline software titles increased 29% in 2006, to 904,000. Revenues from video game software and services are estimated to have a 19% compound annual growth rate through 2011.
Lisa Cosmas Hanson of Niko Partners said that "China added 3.4 million total gamers in 2006 and now boasts 37.5 million gamers, 90% of whom play online games. By 2011 this number is expected to swell to 71.9 million." [eMarketer]
Two-Thirds of Men Ages 18-34 Have Video Game Consoles
Video game console penetration increased to 45.7 million homes in the fourth quarter of 2006, representing 41.1% of all TV households, according to Nielsen Media Research.
In any given minute of the day, about 1.6 million people in the US are using video game consoles.
By the close of 2006, approximately 148.4 million people had access to at least one video game console system in their homes. That is more than half (52.4%) of the total US television population. Console penetration is up 19% since 2004. Total television household penetration rose 2% during the same period.
More than 4.4 million of these consoles are now connected to the Internet, and that figure does not even include the PS3 or Wii.
Two-thirds of all men in television households between the ages of 18 and 34 — and four-fifths of 12-to-17-year-old males — have access to video game consoles in their homes.
"The video game console has become a major player in the battle for the living room," said Jeff Herrmann of Nielsen. "In households across the country, consoles are successfully competing for consumers' time and attention; not simply as gaming platforms, but as multimedia hubs that also can deliver high quality digital movies and IPTV." [eMarketer]
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