New research from the Entertainment Software Association reveals what most people would consider somewhat surprising results regarding the typical gamer profile. According to the study, adult women are more likely to play online games than teenage boys.

As we wrote last week (‘More than half of 31-45 year olds play mobile games’ June 13^th) digital Pay2Play entertainment has become a mainstream component of people’s digital leisure time. It’s the shape of the demographic profile that is surprising to many people.  Overall, women are almost as likely to engage in gaming as men – 45% versus 55%. However, female players over the age of 18 represent a significantly higher proportion of the total in comparison to boys under 17 (31% against 19%).

The most popular types of online games were found to be puzzle and board games, played by 34% of people, followed by action and strategy games, which were favoured by 26%. Casual and social games are a favourite for 19% of players, while 14% opt for persistent multi-player universe gameplay, the poll showed.

Nearly two in three players like having company when playing, either online or in-person. Of those, 77% play together with other people at least for an hour each week. One in three gamers play social games, the Entertainment Software Association said.

Thanks to the development in mobile devices, playing games on the go is becoming increasingly common. As many as 36% of players engage in this activity on their smartphones while they are on the move, while one in four play games on their wireless devices. In total, 43% of smartphone owners use them to play games and 30% do so on their wireless devices.

The key to financial success for digital Pay2Play operators is a rarefied version of the 80/20 Rule; rather more the 95/5 Rule. More customers mean better gameplay (whether it’s Subway Surfers or PartyPoker) but it’s a small minority of customers who spend disproportionately more – considerably more – playing the game. We would like to see a survey published of these customers but imagine the gender split would be overwhelmingly male.