90% of tweens now play online games

Gaming may have moved with the times, and seen an increase in the number of adults playing as a result, but kids are still heavily involved. In fact, 90 percent of tweens play online games.

According to the M2 Research report (via Gaming Angels website), 93 percent of girls and 91 percent of boys (between the ages of 8 and 15) play some form of online games. The DS, PSP, and Apple products are all helping, but it’s Facebook that’s really driving this trend.

It should be noted that “online games” is different than “games online.” These young kids are increasingly turning to social networking sites such as Facebook to get their gaming fix, and so we’re not just talking about PS3 and Xbox, or even DS and Wii here.

However, as much as social gaming, as is the accepted term, can be dismissed and denigrated, it is at least a starting point. So if it gets kids involved and interested in video games at a young age, I’m all for it. After all, these are the individuals we need to buy next-gen consoles if the industry is going to grow.

Growing games socially

From ‘FarmVille’ to ‘Mumbai Underworld’, game developers see social networks as the way to drive games in India...

All it took Games2Win co-founder Alok Kejriwal to turn his mother into a regular social gamer was showing her how to send ‘FarmVille’ gifts over the social networking site Facebook. Now, the 60-year-old regularly pays real money to buy “virtual gifts” for her FarmVille buddies.

Available as an application on Facebook, FarmVille is a real-time farm simulation game that allows members to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting virtual crops and trees, and raising even livestock. It has become a smash hit in the cyber space.

Indeed, social games — casual games that are played on social networking sites with a group of friends — are fast becoming the most used online apps among the 52 million internet subscribers in India. And, this has brought domestic game companies with their own popular portals, like Zapak, Indiagames and Games2Win, into the social networking scene.

Video games should have strong women characters

In video games, women should be portrayed more often and in a better way than Lara Croft, experts have suggested.

In video games, women are depicted as the helpless girly-girl persona of Mario’s beloved Princess Peach, or for getting distracted by the big-boobed often-running Lara Croft.

“We tend to make our females look like they’re ready for sex right now,” the BBC quoted Sheri Graner-Ray, studio design director for Schell Games as saying.

Online gambling Rules and Laws around the world

People in most nations gamble online, but countries have different rules and regulations to keep it in check, from declaring online gambling strictly illegal to allowing only state-controlled operators. It doesn’t always work: Canadians alone spend $1-billion annually on grey-market gambling.

Illegal:

Since 2006, online gambling has technically been illegal in the United States, though the U.S. is one of the largest global markets for it. The House financial services committee passed a motion in July to re-legalize and regulate online gambling, and Congress may complete the legislation by the fall.

Career in online gaming has a big potential

Being at a nascent stage, the Indian market offers a lot of scope for growth


Online gaming is one of the favourite pastimes for entertainment deprived on-the-run individuals. The development of infrastructure, increasing penetration of the internet and availability of quality games has increased the time spent on this form of entertainment.


Online games play a major role in filling the social void created by the fast paced world which leaves little time to socialise in traditional social settings. They provide users a chance to socialise either by competing with each other or working together to accomplish a game’s objectives.

Women over 55 are the biggest online gamers

It’s become something of a truism that when you’re playing a video game online and getting thrashed you are almost certainly getting beaten by a teenage boy. They are, after all, very into games and they have plenty of time on their hands in which to practice.

However, the stereotype might not be true, at least according to research from ComScore. In terms of minutes spent playing games online, the heaviest users are women aged over 55. They spend more of their time gaming than any other age group, male or female.

Gaming seen as means to reduce workplace stress

COMPANIES are increasingly considering ‘gaming’ as a serious option for employee engagement and organisational development initiatives. Gaming during office hours is believed to help in creating an interactive work environment and a relaxed mindset, when the employees get more creative. However, the trend is more confined to IT, media and some service sectors alone.

According to Prashant Bhaskar, CEO of plugHR, a Mumbai-based HR management company, “gaming is seen as a required breather for roles that get monotonous or stressful.

Virtual games people play

he most used function on Angela Shields’s iPhone is not the phone. Or e-mail. Or the Web browser. It’s a game called Words With Friends, and she taps it open more than 10 times a day, anxious about her next move. Shields, a clinical social worker in Washington, DC, doesn’t consider herself a
gamer, a term that conjures images of 26-year-old men slaying aliens in their parents’ basements.

She is 31 and very funny and has many real-world friends, yet she often catches up with them in the Scrabble-like game’s chat room while pecking out 36-point words. “Some friends and I communicate through the app more than we do through e-mail,” Shields says.  “It’s a lot more fun than e-mail. I mean, you can kick their butt while we catch up about our lives.”

More than 200 million people play social games every month, and the numbers playing these simple throwback games grow by the thousands every day. “Whereas the 19th century will be remembered for the creation of the modern novel, and the 20th century was dominated by movies and images on screens, I think we can now see that games will be the dominant form of entertainment in this century,” says Jon Radoff, an early Internet entrepreneur, game developer and armchair gaming historian. If that sounds like blasphemy, consider that online games just passed e-mail as the second-most popular activity online, behind social networking, according to Nielsen.

Last week, Disney paid $563.2 million to buy social game developer Playdom. Google is reportedly in talks with game companies to start a site called Google Games, having noticed that on Facebook, the fastest-growing Web site in the world, 40 per cent of the company’s 500 million users regularly play social games.

Global mobile gaming revenue to reach $11.4 bn by 2014: Gartner

Worldwide mobile gaming end-user revenue is expected to reach USD 11.4 billion by 2014, research firm Gartner said.

According to Gartner, global mobile gaming end-user revenue is expected to increase by 19 per cent to surpass USD 5.6 billion in 2010 from USD 4.7 billion in 2009.

The market will continue to see steady growth through 2014, when it is projected to reach USD 11.4 billion, Gartner said in a statement.