Interviews

Greatdaygames’ Jessica Rovello chats about who plays casual online games
By Michael Lafferty

“People have known that women are the driving force behind the casual games segment for many years.”

To anyone that has been paying attention, the casual game market not only continues to thrive and drive new sites, but caters to people of all ages and genders.

Casual games are considered to be those that, on the surface, can take only minutes to play, usually include using a browser to log onto a Web site that features puzzle, word, strategy and card games, but can be so addictive as to attract with the lure of quick games, but the next thing the player knows, an hour or two has slipped past.

Jessica Rovello is the chairman and co-founder of greatdaygames.com, a site that features a wide variety of games from sports games like miniature golf, to casino and card games, to arcade titles, word games and strategy games like mahjongg. She has been involved in the gaming industry since 1999.

According to her official bio: “As the first female chairman in the highly competitive arena of online games, Jessica Rovello has broken into a field that, until now, has been run, owned and operated exclusively by men. This is despite the fact that the majority of online game players are actually women. Her expertise in consumer marketing for technology and entertainment companies and her love of games has translated into key insights and successful deployments for Arkadium’s growing base of clients.

“Before founding Arkadium, Rovello was vice president of marketing and creative services at On2 Technology (AMEX: ONT), a broadband technology company. Prior to joining On2, she was Director of Online Services for Artisan Entertainment, an independent film company, where she produced 15 highly visible Web sites, including the site for The Blair Witch Project , one of the most successful independent films in history.”

Like any successful site, part of the task is to track users, to see what the target audience is and then to provide content that will be used. Rovello has been doing that for a while and has uncovered some interesting numbers about the type of gamer that frequents casual game sites. GameZone had the chance to talk to Rovello about some of the statistics she uncovered in tracking those who visit and play games on greatdaygames.com. 

Question: How long have you been tracking gender percentages in gaming and how long has it been since you have seen a marked increase in the number of female gamers?

Jessica: We have been tracking gender statistics from Greatdaygames.com since its launch in March of 2006. We were not surprised to see that the stats have been skewed female since the site launched and have stayed that way. Women have been the driving force in the online casual games segment for many years.

Q: Do you have any numbers that might show age groups?

Jessica: We know that players between the ages of 35-54 spend over an hour per session playing casual games at Greatdaygames.com. We also have plenty of anecdotal information from older users (60+) who email us regularly, so we know that the age of our players can skew even higher at times.

Q: What types of games do you generally find that females play?

Jessica: Card, puzzle and strategy games mainly. We find that the most popular games that women play are ones that they have been playing their entire lives. What we have done is to offer variations on these popular games to keep things fresh. For example, Mahjongg is one of our most popular games. We offer seven different versions of Mahjongg as well as five versions of Soduku. What is most interesting is that the more versions we offer the more people play.

Q: Why do you think there is surprise, or even stigma attached to the notion that girls and women play games, too?

Jessica: It is not a surprise to anyone that is in the industry. People have known that women are the driving force behind the casual games segment for many years. The surprise element comes in when people only associate the industry with console games - the majority of which are marketed to young men.

Q: What do you think is the biggest misconception when it comes to female gamers?

Jessica: There are two. One is that if you play games like Mahjongg and Solitaire you are not a gamer. On the contrary, if you play any online game for multiple hours a week, you are a gamer. The second is that when people design games with female gamers in mind they think they can throw in a pony and a rainbow and suddenly it is for women. Many of the games for women look like they have been designed for a young girl, not a mature female. We take a much different approach at www.greatdaygames.com. Our games are designed with input from our community of gamers. The site also offers prizes and other incentives that resonate with this target audience including Target, Sephora, and Bed, Bath and Beyond gift cards.

Q: And in the same vein, what do you think is the biggest misconception among females when it comes to gaming?

Jessica: Women who play games do not consider themselves gamers, because that is what their sons and brothers are doing. My thought is that women think to be a gamer you have to be playing Halo on XBox or waiting in line for 24 hours so you can buy the Wii.

Q: Do you think the trend, of more females playing games, will continue? Is it an untapped market in your opinion and should developers be looking to capitalize on it, or is it merely a matter of being exposed to a wider variety of games that will draw in more female gamers?

Jessica: The trend will most definitely continue. It is certainly an untapped market and everyone in this industry knows that the bread and butter of the casual games market are women. This is yet to be realized in the core market - console, hardcore PC and MMP games. But the landscape is changing thanks to the latest consoles, which include browsers. We were excited to see that the Wii is being marketed as female friendly and that some of our existing online games can be played using the Wii console.