Spotlight: NeoEdge Draws Female Gamers with Ad-Supported PC Games

Authored by Scott Goldberg on March 2, 2007 - 12:35pm.

The video game industry has spent a lot of time researching women gamers with the hope of luring new customers. It’s no secret the common view of the industry is one dominated by 12-35 year old males. The industry’s size – $30 billion – is impressive considering it has not adequately tapped 50% of its potential customer base. This year is shaping up as one in which developers hope to bridge the gender gap.

NeoEdge Networks, a Mountain View, CA ad-supported PC gaming company, hopes to lead the charge in the casual online PC gaming market, which studies are proving to be fertile ground for the female audience. According to the Entertainment Software Association, women make up 44% of online gamers. More importantly, perhaps, 57% of their time is spent playing casual games (defined by Wikipedia as games with few and basic rules targeted at a mass audience).

“Casual games continue to grow in popularity among women and are a virtually untapped resource for advertisers seeking to reach a targeted and engaged audience,” said Vic Mahadevan, CEO for NeoEdge Networks.

The NeoEdge model – free ad-supported games – is an emerging trend in the industry, specifically for casual games. “Advertisers are really interested in this medium, and really eager to subsidize the content,” said Vipul Sawhney, CEO of Hovr, an ad-supported mobile games network.

With many (expensive) choices, a large portion of interested gamers are simply looking for a quick, cheap fix. Casual games are often the answer, but prices are still considered too high to constitute a wide adoption rate, especially given the bevy of alternative free digital entertainment. With ad-supported games, players need only accept targeted advertising to enjoy all the free play they can handle.

NeoEdge launched February 26.

Scott Goldberg