Time to get into the game?

The global number of gamers, just within Facebook, is estimated at 53% of all users – around 350 million people. Interestingly, the majority of gamers are women (58%).

According to PopCap, a survey of 500 users found that the average gamer is a 38 year old woman – though there are still games which appeal directly to men (Mafia Wars for example).

IPC Media is tapping into this market, launching a games site – Feelgood games – that targets women. “With over 7.2 million UK women regularly playing games online, many of whom pay-to-play, gaming is the fastest-growing leisure activity for mass market women, a core demographic for IPC Media,” the press release reads.

“The playing environment has been carefully built around the needs of our 25-44 year-old UK mums who are looking for a few moments of fun, the opportunity to socialise, stimulate the brain, relax and play games. We will continue to evolve our service around the changing needs of our active audience,” Feelgood games publisher Simon Denny said.

IPC has partnered with PopCap and other games studios to offer a selection of web games, including Bejeweled, Zuma’s Revenge and Chuzzle.

The rise of social gaming isn’t going unrecognised – Zynga, the creator of Farmville, is expected to IPO within the next two weeks with an estimated value of $14 billion (nearly double what business network LinkedIn floated for).

Zynga makes an estimated $17 million per month, which comes from a combination of users buying virtual goods and advertisers such as Starbucks putting virtual coffee stores in the game – (the total virtual goods market in the US is $1.6 billion, according to Bloomberg). Zynga makes 80% of its revenue from just 5% of its users.

And according to Mashable, the best performing social games are able to get 41% of users to make a repeat purchase. Speaking on the Social Media panel at our Media Playground event last week, Henry Arkell, business development manager at Techlightenment, said social gaming is the key to creating better brand experiences. He also talked of the rise of games and shops on Facebook, pointing out that Facebook credits will get people to spend money.

A presentation by GameVision at Media Playground revealed that there are 8.8 million gamers on social networks in the UK, and 5.3 million gamers on mobile phones. The research shows that 47.7% of social network gamers play for up to 30 minutes a day; while 33.3% play for an hour of more. GameVision believe that most gamers on social networks and are traditional console gamers.