Quote:
When it comes to online games, women over 40 play the most often and spend the greatest number of hours doing so, even topping teenage boys, according to a study by Digital Marketing Services.
In February, Meredith Corp., publisher of some of the biggest names in women's magazines, launched a "games channel" that features diversions such as Ditto and Jigsaw Puzzle on its three most popular Web sites: Ladies' Home Journal (LHJ.com), Better Homes and Gardens (BHG.com) and American Baby (AmericanBaby.com). (The Houston Chronicle's Web site, chron.com, is home to a number of games, including Universal Jigsaw.)
In March, Meredith teamed up with RealNetworks, a digital entertainment company, to provide RealArcade games such as WordJong, Saints & Sinners Bingo and Bejeweled 2 Deluxe.
In total, the three sites reach more than 8 million unique visitors a month, most of them women, says Dave Kurns, editor in chief of Meredith Interactive.
On LHJ.com, under the Beauty & Fashion banner, is a link to De-Stress With Games, which is followed by links to My Weight-Loss Planner, Recipe Center and Try-a-Hairstyle. Jigsaw Puzzle isn't only a way to get a working mom to stay on LHJ.com a few minutes longer, Kurns says, but also a way to get more advertising dollars. In the future, a TV show — Desperate Housewives, say — could pay Meredith to use the kitchen of Bree Van De Kamp as the image that you're supposed to be putting together, Kurns explains.
"We've been looking at the online gaming trend for the past years, and we realized that having these online games would lengthen the time someone spends on our sites," says Kurns. "We know that women find time at night to go online."
None of Heal's sisters — from Donna, the eldest at 44, to Sharon, the baby at 35 — would call herself a "gamer." They play, that's it, end of discussion. They're regulars in what they call the "club," shorthand for ClubPogo.com, the gaming site LHJ.com and BHG.com are consciously trying to catch up with.
The $29.95-per-year subscription site has 800,000 members, more than 75 percent of them women. It's the sibling of Pogo.com, the "stickiest" site on the Internet — the average Pogo.com user spent 621 minutes on that site in March, according to the Reston, Va.-based marketing research company ComScore. Pogo.com is free, but ClubPogo.com has more games
Seems like women are more likely to pay for crappy on-line java games. I would never pay a site 30 bucks to play rummy or bejeweled.