Agatha Christie casual game downloaded 10m times in six months

Move over Lara – a new game heroine is aiming to take your best-seller crown, and she was a real name in British high society: Oberon Media has said its adaptation of a book by mystery novelist Agatha Christie’s has been downloaded 10m times since launching in April.

The adaptation of the Poirot book Death on the Nile was designed by Jane Jensen, the adventure game writer who devised the Gabriel Night series, and available via Oberon’s online games portal.

To many, the news may not come as that great a surprise given that the entire industry is waking up to the huge widening of the market thanks to casual games.

60 per cent of the game’s players are female, says Oberon.

In a report in The Times, Don Ryan of Oberon said: “The Agatha Christie stories and her audience are, as the figures show, a perfect fit for casual games, and we know that both mystery buffs and casual gamers are delighted with Death on the Nile.”