Women and the future of mobile content
Submitted by Jean Hébert on October 10, 2006 - 6:05pm.
You may have read recently about the Nielsen study that observed women gamers outnumbering men two to one. There are some very good questions asked about this over at Constructing Amusement.
If this weren't enough to counter your intuitions about gaming, gender and technology, consider this. A new study by M:Metrics highlights some new trends in mobile technology adoption (including mobile games), and here again, more women are coming on deck than men. From the RCR Wireless article:
I'm curious - is this a statistical anomaly, or is this indicative of important changes going on in the gendering of gaming and computer technologies?
Of particular note is the shifting demographic profile for active mobile content consumers. The number of females consuming ringtones and games grew by 27 percent and 21 percent, respectively, year over year. Corresponding numbers for males were growth of 15.4 percent in males downloading ringtones and a decline of 11.3 percent in the number of males downloading games. Females now account for a clear majority, or 55 percent, of ringtone purchasers. While males still have a higher propensity to download games, the ratio of male to female game downloaders has dropped from 61 percent male in 2005 to 54 percent male in 2006.
I'm curious - is this a statistical anomaly, or is this indicative of important changes going on in the gendering of gaming and computer technologies?
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