(16 January 2008 6:00 pm)

BANGALORE: A study conducted by Indiagames on more than 10,000 paid subscribers of its Games on Demand (GoD) subscription service revealed that the year 2007 saw an increase in the consumption of gaming across age groups and income segments.

The study revealed that mobile gaming saw a huge jump in numbers coming specially from the smaller towns and at lower price points, while online gaming was able to make a mark with about 3 million gamers. Also, launches of consoles like XBOX 360 and Sony PS3 saw a surge in consumer interest in the gaming space.

Speaking on the study, Indiagames CEO Vishal Gondal said, "The study is of interest to marketers across industries as more people are playing during prime time. Also 60 per cent of the gamers are aged above 22 years with working professionals and business people comprising of 34 per cent of gamers. The preachers of in-game advertising have something to munch here."

"The year 2007 has been great and we believe 2008 would be much more exciting. We will definitely see more people budgeting gaming into their spending on entertainment," added Gondal.

Key observations from the study recorded that in 2007 the total game play on the service was recorded as 279,81,060 minutes over 1 year with an average time spent of about 233 minutes per user per month and a peak usage of 981 users; 60 per cent of the gamers were aged above 22, a number which breaks the myth that gaming is of interest to only teens; 50 per cent of the gamers were from North, 25 per cent from West followed by 20 per cent from South. The Eastern region comprised of only 5 per cent; though the gaming scenario is still dominated by males, the share of women is growing. 13 per cent of the gamers in 2007 were women.

The top game genre was casual gaming with 47 per cent share followed by strategy and action with 17 per cent each; five of the top ten games of 2007 belonged to the causal genre, two each belonged to the strategy and action genres and one came from the sports genre.

Other findings from the study revealed that 34 per cent of the users were working professionals and business people. 7 per cent of the users were housewives and 4 per cent were retired people; the most played game was Chess-master Challenge followed by Diner Dash 2 and Flip Words.