A new survey has found that 62% of hardcore gamers no longer buy games at full price, with a surprising divide between age groups.
As we have seen with the hype around Mario Kart World AND rumors about GTA 6The rising price of video games has become a major sticking point for many people.
The issue will only get worse as publishers continue to struggle with rising development costs and when combined with high price of hardwarethere is concern that the next generation of consoles may be out of reach for many people.
However, according to a new survey, most gamers are no longer buying games at full price, especially older fans.
or Generations at play The report, developed by IGN Entertainment in collaboration with Kantar and UC Berkeley, surveyed thousands of ‘highly committed’ consumers based in the US, UK and UK and Australia on their playing habits.
According to the survey, 62% of gamers no longer buy games at full price, which is a pretty bad reflection of how expensive things have become.
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When broken down by age group, 38% of Millennials (people aged 30-44) and 42% of Gen Z (people aged 14-29) said they still buy games at full price. However, only 20% of Gen X (people aged 46-61) said they still do.
This is surprising given that the rise of free-to-play games is often blamed on Gen Z, but they seem to be buying more full-price games than Gen X – although the latter probably have less time to play new titles.
However, it is unclear if this includes the full price indie games also, which are more affordable (Hollow Knight : Silksongfor example, it’s only £15.99), so this may have skewed the responses somewhat.
As described by IGN’s senior vice president of global marketing, Karl Stewart, in Brands in the game podcast, this survey focuses on ‘highly qualified entertainment cinephiles’ rather than ‘casual’, so it’s mostly people who choose to play games frequently in their spare time.
As such, smarter gamers are likely more aware that game prices drop quickly after a few months, so there’s less incentive to pick up titles early.
Elsewhere in the report, it found that Gen X prioritizes Google searches to discover new games, while 85% of Millennials favor to YouTube and Gen Z relies on social media.
Additionally, Gen X prefers single-player games, while Gen Z gravitates towards multiplayer titles. Millennials, meanwhile, like Hannah Montana, enjoy the best of both worlds equally.
Gen X and Millennials are more likely to return to games to complete or own them, compared to Gen Z who are more motivated by new customization or community content.
In other more surprising findings, Gen X was more likely to consume advice videos when looking for directions, while Millennials liked mapping tools and Gen Z like building guides. Finally, Gen X is more skeptical of AI and more trusting of brand recognition, being 38% less likely to use AI for discovery and 44% less likely to believe AI summaries are as good as human ones.
While we’re not sure what to glean from map-loving Millennials, it’s still an interesting look at the habits of different generations.
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