The kids on the Tween Panel at the YPulse Mashup this past Friday were hard pressed to come up with their favorite
Web sites that weren’t gaming sites. They rattled them off… Albinoblacksheep, Pokemon, Crazymonkeygames, Neopets, Webkinz, Maplestory…. and the others nodded their heads knowingly.
Tweens (ages 8 to 12) are just all about gaming online. These are the “casual games” we’ve talked about before as a burgeoning trend and a huge growth market for the industry. Online gaming has always been around, but they are only just entering the mainstream. They are already huge in Asia with 30 percent of Chinese youth opting to play games online, compared to only 15 percent on a console, according to a Label Networks survey. Their research also shows that, while consoles like Nintendo’s Xbox and Sony’s PlayStation still dominate in the U.S., younger teens play them less that any other demo and play online games more.
Interestingly, females are the big casual gamers in the U.S.—76% according to a recent ISG study. On the panel, one 12 year-old tween bragged that it was she who asked her parents to buy a Wii and not her little brother. The Wii is catching on with girls, boys, moms and dads because it is both casual and console-based. Families are gathering around it instead of the TV. One boy recounted how he bought the new version of Dance Dance Revolution while everyone was waiting in line 
for Halo 3. “It was hilarious watching my mom play,” he laughed. Dollsites like Stardoll, CDE and Barbiedolls and Virual Networks like Club Penguin, WhyVille and WeeWorld are all a form of online games as well.
As the casual gaming trend continues to explode, tweens will be on the forefront. Getting messages across to tweens using games has huge potential. Check out mypopstudio.com, which challenges kids to think about media in new ways using interactive games, and the many “edutainment” games at kidscom.com.
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