• by Shankar Gupta , February 28, 2007

Women's lifestyle portal iVillage has sealed a deal with Electronic Arts' casual games property, Pogo, to syndicate titles from the company's library of games--a deal that taps into the demographic appeal of short-form games to older women.

Ezra Kucharz, iVillage's chief operations officer, said the site's visitors had been asking for the inclusion of casual games, and that their target demo is also a major market for EA's Pogo.

"There are 34 million women who play casual games online," said Kucharz. "More women over the age of 17 play games than men under the age of 17."

In December 2006, comScore Media Metrix reported that 39% of women online visit gaming sites, and spent 83 million hours playing casual games that year.

The gaming channel will be hosted on iVillage, and co-branded with Pogo. Titles on the channel will include "Poppit!" as well as "First Class Solitaire," and "Word Whomp!" as well as "Hearts" and "Spades."

Kucharz said some of the titles include in-game advertising spots, and that EA and iVillage are currently in talks about how to sell ad space on the co-branded channel.