The following facts that I'll be analyzing through and commenting on come from the 'UK VIDEO GAMES FACT SHEET' by ukie.
Diversity & Gender Representation:
'49% of mobile players are woman' - This fact suggests that women and men are almost equal within the mobile gaming industry. This is a very positive fact because it shows that men and woman both feel equally inclined to play games on mobile devices, promoting equality within genders inside the gaming industry.
'43% of female mobile players play mobile games 5 times a week or more, compared to 38% of men' - This fact shows that woman play more on mobile then men do, the reason for this is the fact that woman favor the mobile gaming scene whereas men prefer other gaming platforms whether these PC or Console.
'25% of men who play mobile games agree that "I would spend more time playing mobile games if I knew I was playing with or against my own gender" vs. only 10% of woman" - This on the other hand is a negative fact. Not only does it imply we still have too much sexism within gaming but that it sources from both male and female players.
'High school boys also want to see more girls playing (87% said they'd like that) and 61% agree or strongly agree that females are too often treated as sex objects (25% remained neutral), while 83% of girls agreed or strongly agreed that this happens too often' - Although females are naturally more annoyed buy the constant appearance of this type of female character within games, males are very much aware and against this too. This is evidence that can very likely point to developers needing to change how they design their characters.
Summary - Despite very obvious attempts to counteract sexism and promote gender equality within mobile video games, sexism still exists. In a scene which is preferred by female players then male ones, surely that's more of a reason to want to put a stop to it.
Markets:
'In a survey of Americans aged 50-plus, close to four in ten (38%) are playing video games' - This is interesting because it shows that our gaming demographic is much more diverse then somebody would have initially assumed. This is a good thing for developers at it shows there is so much more potential to open up video games to a lot more people and it's also a good thing for developers because they're not chained to the ground with certain concepts that appeal to the stereotyped 'gamer' market because that is not the entirety of the market.
'Local co-operative gaming is consistently the most appealing form of social gaming across age and gender, easily beating competitive play' - The most likely reason for this is because competitive play is much more stressful and difficult then local co-operative gaming. Older and much younger players along with those who are less experienced gamers will often find these co-operative games much more appealing, a good place for developers to begin focusing on more.
Summary - All in all, the market for games is great because it allows for so much alteration and flexibility for game developers and that in turn allows for a much wider scene to get into and start enjoying games.
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