Why Advertisers Should Focus on the Women Playing Mobile Games

It’s often assumed that men are far more invested in gaming than women. 

Many of us remember that male gamers dominate e-sports and the gaming industry generally caters to a male audience. But this makes it easy to incorrectly assume that women are less interested in mobile games.

The Mobile Games Index 2024 tells a different story. Women are not only present in the mobile gaming space. They outperform men when it comes to engagement metrics, and they’ve been spending more time in gameplay than men for several years.

With almost three in four women playing mobile games daily, both game developers and UA teams should look at better connecting with female audiences to boost the quality and scale of their user base.

Which Games Do Women Engage with Most?

Women play mobile games for an average of 21.4 minutes per day, according to the MGI 2024. The highest engagement time they generate worldwide is in adventure games – 27.1 minutes a day on average versus 24.4 for male audiences.

Out of ten mobile gaming genres analyzed for MGI 2024, women in fact dominate engagement in six – adventure, board, card, casual, puzzle, and word games. Men, meanwhile, spend more time playing action, casino, role-playing, and strategy games. 

If you go more granular when analyzing gender preferences, you’ll notice some staggering differences between how men and women engage with various genres – especially, from region to region.

Men in Europe, for example, spend significantly more time than women in action games, an average of 26.7 minutes per day compared to women’s 17.4 minutes. In North America, too, men play action games for 3.7 minutes longer per day than women. 

It might be enough for UA teams to use these statistics to adjust their strategy when it comes to gender targeting for games. But cases like this beg the question game development teams might want to ask themselves: What’s the reason behind this large gap in engagement with specific genres?

Studies suggest that when it comes to genre preferences, gender stereotypes are prevalent in the gaming industry – whether this is hidden or obvious, intentional or unintentional. These stereotypes often exaggerate the actual differences between genders.  

Lower engagement from women in particular genres might therefore not be down to a lack of interest but rather a combination of systemic barriers that female players face to be able to engage with certain games.

Where Are There Barriers to Deeper Engagement?

Women are less likely than men to fully embrace gameplay. They often face unfair treatment in gaming spaces, which affects their in-game experience and stalls industry growth. 

According to Google, women tend to:

• Stick to fewer game genres: Most women play two or fewer genres, while most men play three or more.
• Discuss games less often: 44 percent of men playing mobile games regularly discuss them with friends. Only 27 percent of women do the same.
• Experience less satisfaction from purchases: 70 percent of men feel positive about their game purchases compared to 58 percent of women. 
• Identify as gamers less frequently: 57 percent of men identify as gamers and only 29 percent of women do.

A further noteworthy statistic is that men constitute over two-thirds of game developers. This lack of diversity among decision-makers inevitably translates into a lack of diversity in mobile games themselves. It is important that developers consider designers and leaders from diverse backgrounds to create games that are relatable and enjoyable to a broad audience. These games will therefore be more attractive to a larger user base.

In the Google Play Store, 44 percent more game icons feature male characters compared to female characters. This disparity sends a subtle yet powerful message about who gaming is for, sidelining female players and their preferences. According to the same report, 60 percent of female mobile gamers believe that less than 30 percent of mobile games are designed with them in mind. 

Another final thing to consider is alienation of female mobile gamers caused by the rise of sexist ads that reinforce harmful gender bias and hostile online playing environments, where women often experience toxicity from male players. To address this, the industry should instead promote positive, inclusive messages, provide better moderation tools, and encourage diversity in game content and community leadership.

Where Do Women Fit in an Advertiser’s UA Strategy?

Besides the ethical advantages of adjusting UA strategy and the content of the mobile game itself to focus on the women playing mobile games, there are business advantages, too. 

It’s worth first mentioning the expected market growth in each of the genres we mentioned above. The gaming genres men tend to engage longer with – strategy, role-playing, and action games – are predicted to have the lowest growth rates between 2024 and 2028. 

Other studies reveal that women are more likely to spend money on IAPs, with over 30 percent willing to pay for mobile games. What does all this data tell us?

The more successful game developers are at attracting and retaining female users in “male-dominated” mobile genres, the more they can grow these genres, while simultaneously banishing outgrown industry stereotypes and unnecessary barriers to engagement. They’ll also start tapping more into the valuable potential of female gamers, who have already shown their worth in other game types.

Once in-game content is adjusted – maybe even with hybrid elements that attract women to male-dominated genres – UA teams can look to further audience analyses, such as age and region, to polish their UA targeting strategy. 

Comparing engagement metrics between regions is the only way for teams to learn that women in Africa engage in longer daily casual game sessions. They engage for 26.4 minutes per day compared to the 22.4 minutes men spend. In Asia, women lead gameplay duration in card games, engaging for 25.9 minutes daily compared to 21.9 minutes for men. 

If teams can formulate and adjust their strategy with granular insights like these from MGI 2024, they will be able to successfully tailor gender targeting for games to maximize engagement and retention among female gamers.

Don’t Neglect the Women Playing Mobile Games

Women hold immense power as users and consumers in mobile gaming. 

They are active, engaged, and willing to invest both time and money in their mobile gaming experiences. Data suggests that they are a strong driving force behind the growth of mobile genres with which they are already engaged.

Yet, there is another side to this coin. Women also often feel marginalized and excluded, which prevents them from fully interacting with certain genres.

To scale their games and the quality of their users, the most successful mobile game studios and UA teams will focus on optimizing their products and strategies to involve the women playing mobile games.