MarketingVOX: Anxious about the mental cost of aging, older people are turning to games that rely on quick thinking to stimulate brain activity, according to the New York Times. Casual gaming site PopCap Games, for example, says last year 71 percent of its players were older than 40, and?47 percent were older than 50; moreover, 76 percent of PopCap players were women.
Pogo.com is getting similar results. According to Electronic Arts, the game publisher that runs the site, people 50 and older accounted for 28 percent of visitors in February – but also for more than 40 percent of total time spent on the site. And, on average, women spent 35 percent longer on the site each day than men.
“Baby boomers and up are definitely our fastest-growing demographic, and it is because the fear factor is diminishing,” said Beatrice Spaine, Pogo.com’s marketing director. “Women come for the games, but they stay for the community. Women like to chat, and these games online are a way to do that. It’s kind of a MySpace for seniors.”
And, apparently, the Nintendo Wii is becoming a hit in retirement facilities. Baltimore-based Erickson Retirement Communities, which manages 18 campuses around the country with 19,000 total residents, is installing the consoles at each location.
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- Advertisers Giving Online Games Plenty of Play
- NeoEdge Releases RSS-Powered Game Player Targeting Women
- Baby Boomers Still Sought after by Marketers
- Arkadium, Hearst Partner to Bring Advergames to Mag Sites
- Casual Game Site Rebel Monkey Launched
- Sponsor Select Allows Casual Gamers to Select Ads They See
- Ads Proliferate in Online Casual Games
- Boomers Research Identifies Six Distinct Groups
- Boomers Get Their Own Social-Networking Site
- Boomers Spend More Money Online
