More Women Play Social Games Than Men

Don't expect women to overtake men as gamers quite yet, but they are leading the pack in playing games on social networks like Facebook and MySpace. A survey by PopCap Games shows 55% of social gamers are women, who are also more likely to play with real-world friends rather than strangers. 68% of women play with people they know in real life and 46% play with relatives, while men tend to play with strangers more often than women and only play with relatives 29% of the time.

And just because social games tend to be more casual, don't think people aren't spending a fair bit of time playing them. More than half of social gamers say their average session lasts over half an hour and ten percent say their average time exceeds three hours. These gamers also tend to spend a big chunk of their time on social networks playing games, spending about 39% of their total time playing multi-player social games.

Here's some other facts from the survey:

• 69% of social gamers also play other types of video games with 23% also playing console games and 13% playing mobile phone games.
• 95% play social games multiple times a week and 34% play several times a day.
• Is it addicting? 35% say their game play has increased over the past three months compared to only 10% whose game play decreased, 27% say they read less since they began playing, 26% watch fewer movies or less TV, 24% surf the web less and 21% are skimping on exercise to play social games.
• Where are they playing? It is not surprising that 83% play on Facebook, followed by 24% playing on MySpace and 7% who play on Bebo. (This exceeds 100% because of those who play on multiple social networks.)
• Almost half (49%) login specifically to play social games.
• They aren't just sticking to one game. The average number of different social games played is just over 6.
• Interestingly enough, one-fourth of social gamers say they have been mislead by an ad or special offer related to playing a social networking game.

Photo: Yuri Arcurs / Getty Images