Games-playing is being transformed, driven by a wave of new devices like smart phones and tablets, faster Internet connections and the rising interest of players of varied demographics, according to a new report by Ericsson, the world’s largest mobile broadband provider.

Cathaya Xu, head of Ericsson Consumer-Lab for the northeastern Asian region, said in Beijing that the rising torrent of online data traffic is partially contributed by games, as gaming has become more socially acceptable as a mainstream form of culture, and more people are looking for game immersion and socialization.

The report – New Way to Play Games – surveyed a wide variety of consumers in the United States, Brazil, South Korea and elsewhere. It has found that the introduction of personalized, app-based, multi-purpose devices has enabled gaming to reach a much wider audience.

In China, up to 60 percent of smart phones sold are installed with different types of gaming applications, and females make up 43 percent of all game players,.

As online gaming is becoming a mainstream source of profits for many Internet companies, operators could leverage the market by investing more on better networks and mete out a reasonable billing system for charging data traffic, Xu said.