The Hindu Business Line : Getting women into gaming parlour

Playing games
Zapak plans to launch a site exclusively for women gamers.
One of the largest all-female gaming communities online is the PMS Clan.

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Bangalore Jan. 26 Games for men, soaps for women? Gaming firms in India are trying to break this cliched leisure preference. While in the US, almost 50 per cent of casual gamers are women; Indian numbers look dismal.

According to varied industry estimates, saturated gaming markets boast 43-50 per cent of casual gamers as women above the age of 40 years. "In India, this is hardly 5-8 per cent. Our female population is still addicted to saas-bahu serials. It's time to shake them out of it," said Mr Rohit Sharma, Chief Operating Officer, Zapak Digital Entertainment.

He expects the proportion of women in the gaming community to become 35 per cent.

It's time to expand target market, agree gaming firms. Currently, the average casual gamer is above 15 years, and male. By year-end, this is expected to become gender neutral.

The Reliance ADA Group's gaming firm Zapak plans to launch a site exclusively for women gamers.

Zapak Girls

Zapak Girls will be launched in two months time. The company is still developing games on fashion, cooking, romance (finding the right man). There will be a bouquet of 25 games totally exclusively made for women, said Mr Sharma.

Meanwhile, Mumbai-based Indiagames is having a home run with its Diner Dash 2 game. "We have seen extraordinary response to this game," said Mr Sameer Bangara, COO, Indiagames.

LevelUp's recent introduction of the Heritage patch in its multiplayer game Ragnarok has also seen a considerable increase in women gamers. "The Heritage patch includes the much awaited marriage episode, where the gamers can get married to the opposite sex in the game. Girl gamers find these new possibilities exciting and are eager to check them out," said Mr Venkat Mallik, Managing Director, Level Up Network India.

GIRL POWER

One of the largest all-female gaming communities online is the PMS Clan. PMS stands for Pandora's Mighty Soldiers. They play on XBoxs, PS2s and from the basic PC.

Another popular faction of women gamers formed the Fragdolls in 2004. Game publisher Ubisoft recruited them to promote women as gamers.

Frag is a count of the number of kills in a shooter game, and, according to the community, fragdolls are women with the `skills to dominate in multiplayer shooters'. How many of you dames are in for some gaming?

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