I searched for a recent study results for gaming habits of middle-aged women in London. Even though I have not yet encountered this specific data, I ended up with some insight on the general women preferences in gaming.
"A similar conclusion can be drawn when we examine how gamers discover new games. On the surface, there are clear differences in the way men and women discover games. For female gamers, social circles are key, with 39% of them discovering a game through friends or family, and 20% through social networks. For men, a comparatively low 27% discover games through friends or family. Instead, 26% of men discover new titles through review or game sites and 24% through online video channels."
"Platform type also affects the discovery method. Mobile-specific factors (such as app store ranking) index more highly for women than methods typically used for PC or console game discovery (such as a magazine). This indicates that choice of platform shapes the route by which a player finds a game, rather than gender alone."
"Delving deeper into their preferences reveals a few areas where male and female gamers differ. Across all platforms, men favor the strategy, sports, action adventure, and shooter categories. In comparison, women enjoy a broader genre of games, including puzzle, simulation, and arcade. The divergence in favored genres is most notable on mobile, with 48% of women listing puzzle as their top pick. This was the highest rating for any genre by either gender across all platforms, indicating the appeal of puzzle games to mobile players."
Male and Female Gamers: How Their Similarities and Differences Shape the Games Market
MAY 3 2017, George Osborn - Freelance Writer
https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/male-and-female-gamers-how-their-similarities-and-differences-shape-the-games-market/
This video points out that hidden object games, which have its own audience base, is an overlooked genre. They are popular among women above 20.
According to a 2017 report by the video game analytics company Quantic Foundry, based on surveys of about 270,000 gamers, the following proportions of female gamers within a genre:
Match-3 (69%), Family or farming simulator (69%)
Casual puzzle (42%), Atmospheric exploration (41%)
Interactive drama (37%), High fantasy MMO (36%), Japanese RPG (33%)
Western RPG (26%), Survival Roguelike (25%), Platformer (25%)
City-building (22%), Action RPG (20%)
Sandbox (18%), Action-adventure (18%), Sci-fi MMO (16%), Open world (14%), Turn-based strategy (11%)
"According to data collected by Quantic Foundry in 2016, the primary motivations why people play video games differ, on average, by gender. While men frequently want most to compete with others and destroy things, women often want most to complete challenges and immerse themselves in other worlds."
"A 2015 study found that lower-skilled male players of Halo 3 were more hostile towards teammates with a female voice, but behaved more submissively to players with a male voice. Higher-skilled male players, on the other hand, behaved more positively towards female players. The authors argued the male hostility towards female gamers in terms of evolutionary psychology, writing, 'female-initiated disruption of a male hierarchy incites hostile behaviour from poor performing males who stand to lose the most status,' " (irrelevant to the target research, keeping it for later if I'dlike to use this elsewhere).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_and_video_games
I decided to check on Candy Crush, considering the popularity of Match-3 games and that it is the game most played by the middle-aged women.
"Amanda Scott, of Birmingham, is one of the Candy Crush superfans. The 49-year-old has so far reached level 2350. She said: 'I started playing roughly a year after it first came out five years ago, so I’ve been playing for four years. I really like the complexity of the puzzles and the sweet feeling of beating the levels as they get harder and harder. The fact that they get progressively harder is really appealing, as it keeps me on my toes. I love it when the colour bombs are activated, and you see most of the game board cleared right in front of you. It’s pretty spectacular when this happens!"I play on my daily on my commute, and sometimes on breaks. Adding those together, it tends to be about ten to fifteen minutes daily. Sometimes during my tea break at work, I’ll spend a few minutes playing.'.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/woman-who-creates-candy-crush-11517549