The Casual Games Association released some figures during its study that measured trends in the casual games market.
Dubbed Casual Games Market Report 2007, the study claims that the business is now generating $2.25 billion in revenue each year and continues to grow 20% annually.
More than 200 million gamers play casual games on the Internet each month and the demographic is split slightly in half, 51.7% are women and 48.3% are men. Also 74% of women casual gamers pay for their games.
In an interesting note, casual gamers play an average of 7 to 15 hours per week, which some may find ironic considering one of the defining terms of a "casual gamer" is the lesser number of hours dedicated to gaming versus hardcore gamers.
While 7 to 15 hours a week sounds a lot, the CGA reported that most casual games are played for 5 to 20 minutes but for extended periods of time.
The heaviest times of day that casual gamers play is either between 7PM to 9PM or 11AM to 2PM. Those hours snuggingly fit after work or during a lunchbreak. During my downtimes in-between classes, I tend to play Zuma, which is shown in the image.
[Via Macworld]
