Female gamers are the most loyal and highest-spending block of gamers in egaming, yet for years they’ve gone mostly ignored in the industry. MegaFans, a mobile gaming startup and esports engine, aims to correct this disparity and bring more inclusivity to esports.
In a recent blog article on the topic of female gamers, MegaFans’ co-founder, Jeff Donnelley broke down some astonishing numbers about female representation and purchasing power. Despite some common assumptions, statistics show that female gamers make up 55 per cent of the global gaming market and in 2018 this demographic spent over $50 billion on eGames. Donnelley goes on to say, “In general, female gamers have a higher retention rate, make more in-app purchases and have a higher customer lifetime value than their male counterparts.”
Since the beginning of electronic gaming, video games have been predominantly marketed as a male-oriented past time. As gaming has developed into a high-profit market and more recently, a serious sporting event, female gamers have continued to find themselves excluded from fully being embraced or acknowledged by the industry.
With 75 per cent of the global population projected to own a mobile device by 2020, more women and girls than ever are becoming avid gamers. As a principle part of its mission, MegaFans embraces the inborn diversity represented by the mobile platform and the company aims to use it as a vehicle to give a larger pool of gamers full access to the esports experience. With “esports for everyone” as a core mission, Megafans also focuses on tapping Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets in underserved regions where mobile devices are the principle mean of communication and economic transaction, but mostly go ignored by larger game publishers.
Mobile presents a huge opportunity for those willing to stop wooing the same Western and male-dominated demographics and instead acknowledge that avid gamers exist in other markets.