By Xiu Ying
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Games Brazil 2019 Survey, released earlier this June, showed clarifying results on the gamer audience in Brazil. According to data on the general audience, considering the 3,251 respondents — of whom 53 percent are female and 47 percent male — an increase in female presence in games and e-sports was recorded for the fourth consecutive year of the Games Brazil Survey.
This is directly linked to the growth of the mobile phone market and the change in the industry’s approach. “Until the early 2000s, the games industry was a market targeting the male audience, which started to change in 2006, with the advent of consoles like Wii, which did not focus on immersion in graphics, but rather on social experience,” says Guilherme Camargo, CEO of Sioux Group, one of the companies in charge of data collection.
“The audience that played, mostly male, invited their mothers, sisters, and girlfriends to play and they became part of this world, which the industry had perceived as exclusively male, until then.”
Camargo also draws a link between the increase in the female audience and the development of large gaming communities: “Several games developed within social networks began to show greater diversity and acceptance. Soon after that, the platform, the smartphone, the ease of communication, and the number of freeware games became popular.”
According to the CEO, the steady growth of the female audience, among other factors, is linked to the rise of the mobile market and to the use of smartphones to spend free time — either on social networks or, in this case, gaming. “Devices and games have become the solution to such idle moments.”
A further aspect identified by the Games Brazil 2019 Survey, which further enhances the strength of the mobile games market, is the fact that this is the most commonly used platform by the audience, both among casual and hardcore gamers. “The smartphone is not necessarily the preferred device, but it allows you to play anywhere at any time,” says the CEO.
The Games Brazil 2019 Survey can be accessed on its official website and includes free material. The data was collected between 5th and 8th February by Sioux Group, Blend and ESPM.