Computer games used to be aimed at pubescent boys hooked on violence, or, as Bobby Kotick, the chief executive of Activision, describes them, “guys who can't get a date on Saturday night”.

However, times have changed: 40 per cent of purchasers of one of Mr Kotick's most popular games are women.

The profile of computer-game users is changing. In an interview with The Times, Mr Kotick described how games have evolved from a thumb-numbing exercise to an experience more akin to attending a feature film.

“There is a real demographic expansion which we had always hoped for,” he said. “There's now going to be a rivalry between feature films and computer games. We are not there yet, but it will happen - there will be a narrative.

“The physical appearance of the game has changed, which is attracting new people, and there is a real sense of a social game. With the internet, people on different sides of the world can play against each other. People who had never before played a video game are picking one up now.”

Music has contributed significantly to this transformation. Fifty per cent of the market is occupied by men aged 18 to 35, but interactive music appears to have attracted women.

Activision owns Guitar Hero, a game that allows users to play air guitar to music. It has taken off in the US, propelling Activision into the premier league of the sector.

Next month Activision will merge with Vivendi's Blizzard games business, creating a company to rival Electronic Arts, the long-time market leader.

Vivendi will have control of Activision Blizzard, and the company will have $3billion (£1.5billion) in cash on its balance sheet and a further $1billion for deals in the one part of the media and entertainment industry that is growing fast - helped by the arrival of new gamers to the party.

Could the feminisation of the customer base mean that rampant violence is on the wane in computer games?

Mr Kotick, an urbane New Yorker who lives in Hollywood, doubts it. “I don't think that you need to have gratuitously violent products,” he said. “But no company can afford to turn its back on a $45 billion section of the market. They are as important to the business as R-rated movies [restricted to 17 and older] are to films.”

Perhaps escaping to the virtual world of Activision's games will hold more appeal as the real economy worsens. Mr Kotick suggests that although computer games used to thrive during recessions, the same may not be true this time.

“It used to be the case that we did well during slowdowns because if you couldn't afford to go to the movies or to travel to a theme park, you stayed home and played a computer game.

"But now I think that the hardware manufacturers are going to have to think about reducing their prices because the cost of purchasing some of this stuff is prohibitive.”

The economic slowdown in the US is not the only threat to Mr Kotick's business model. The cost of living in the UK poses a significant threat, too.

Activision, which employs 1,000 workers in Slough, Birmingham and Liverpool, is ruling out expansion in Britain because of the cost of living and because the Government will not give media companies the kind of tax breaks that Canada offers.

“It is ridiculously expensive to live in the UK, especially in London,” Mr Kotick said. “What dictates our expansion plans would be whether we can compensate our employees fairly and whether they can achieve the quality of life that they want.

“We think about development planning and where we can get tax incentives that would help us do that. Our employee base tends to be young, say, in their thirties. And I think that they would like to be in a city rather than in Slough.”

The industry is growing, but it appears that Britain will have a diminishing part of that growth.

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