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Games

Millennials Spend More Time Playing Video Games Than Gen Z and Teens, New Study Finds (variety.com) 69

Millennials are the largest untapped market that video game companies should be focusing on, per a new study from Fandom, which finds that the generation spends more time gaming than both Gen Z and teens. Variety reports: According to fan-community platform and entertainment company Fandom's annual Inside Gaming report, which was released Thursday, "despite teens and Gen Z spending more time gaming than they did last year, older generations of players are spending more hours per week gaming." Compiled based on proprietary user data from Fandom.com and a global study that examines how gamer motivations and behaviors vary by generation, the report found that 52% of Millennials surveyed rank playing video games as their top interest and 40% of Fandom's Millennial audience spends over 22 hours per week gaming, compared to only 29% of tweens.

Additionally, Fandom's report found that "influence to purchase brands that have investments in the gaming space gets stronger with age," as Fandom's millennial users are at least 24% more likely to be "heavily influenced" to buy games compared to the average Fandom user. But that doesn't mean studios and developers should start sleeping on the younger generations: While 45% of gamers overall are spending more time gaming than they did a year ago, and Millennials are the demo playing the most of anyone, the biggest growth in overall time spent gaming vs. last year was seen among tweens and teens, up 63% and 48%, respectively.

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Millennials Spend More Time Playing Video Games Than Gen Z and Teens, New Study Finds

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  • Can confirm (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 14, 2023 @05:45AM (#63448948)

    I can confirm this. As a millenial I've played a lot of video games, but I've never played Gen Z nor Teens.

  • Obviously (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Borgmeister ( 810840 ) on Friday April 14, 2023 @06:25AM (#63448986) Homepage
    Because we had gaming before it became a lootbox and in-game purchase hellscape. We had the true Platinum Age of gaming - where a huge variety of disparate concepts started to coalesce. I doubt I'd be as passionate if I'd started gaming in the 2010's. We had the greatest era guys - let us be thankful for that - an era we can continue to enjoy from this "futurestate".
    • I've started playing computer games in the 1980s yet would definitely prefer to play games from the 2010s. Skyrim, Prey, Deus Ex Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, Far Cry 4, Dishonored 1 and 2, Battletech, XCOM (ok, that one is a remake of a 1990s game, but is more fun to play than the clunky original game), Alien: Isolation, Fallout: New Vegas, SOMA... all of them great games from the 2010s. All
      despite the in game purchase hell. The only games from the 1980s I would play today would be Boulder Dash and

    • This 100%. Community run game servers where you could meet and have a great time. Ability to kick/ban cheaters without having to rely on some nebulous never-acted-upon promises from vendors. Lack of never-ending skins and level-ups means the games actually had to have some longevity and thought-out design. Yep, it's a shame.
    • We had the greatest era guys - let us be thankful for that - an era we can continue to enjoy from this "futurestate".

      Even more so, since we belonged to a generation where games would work without an Internet connection, which means we can still play those 10 to 20-year-old games just fine today. I feel real bad for the current generation, as they have no idea how much stuff will just disappear forever in a few years.

  • Untapped? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gherald ( 682277 ) on Friday April 14, 2023 @06:35AM (#63448992) Journal

    > Millennials are the largest *untapped* market that video game companies should be focusing on...the generation spends more time gaming than both Gen Z and teens

    That word does not mean what you think it means

  • Strange results (Score:5, Interesting)

    by real_nickname ( 6922224 ) on Friday April 14, 2023 @07:05AM (#63449030)
    Fortnite, roblox, minecraft are top cash machine and their audience is made of teens and kids. Survey target fandom users, maybe there is a bias?
    • There is a difference between paying a lot for a game and playing a game a lot.

      Talk to a real diehard gaming and they can probably name one game they played to death, chalking up 1000 hours all for transactions were added. In fact if we looked at per capita gaming hours for CS1.6 vs CS:GO we likely would be surprised the average play time for the earlier game is higher but it's indisputable more money has been made by the latter title.

      There are lots of reasons for this just like how most MMOs today are shit

    • Or maybe the survey put quite an unreasonable bar in place. 22hours of anything other than working or sleep is a LOT in one week. That's over 3 hours a day.

      A more relevant headline is 29% of tweens are failing school and university. When I was in that age bracket between study and work I didn't have time to play games. Now as a millennial I clock off for work and do whatever the heck I feel like.

  • If it does, probably the numbers would be reversed!
  • As a millennial, I can't say the kids are missing out on much. The industry for the last decade or so have been fairly stagnant and generally un-inspirational. Phone gaming is an exception... between Fruit Ninja and Genshin Impact; they basically recapitulated the enitre history of games, went from arcade to AAA in one decade. There are some gaming podcasts I can't stop listening to (because I liked the hosts since high school) but I almost despise gaming itself by now. I haven't outgrown it because I
  • Millennials were playing video games before the real surge in social media.
    Gen Z and teens have had social media for most of their lives (and many would have had a phone before getting a traditional gaming device).

  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday April 14, 2023 @09:31AM (#63449304) Journal

    ...and starting to recognize that everything they 'enthused' so very much about for the past dozen-plus years is basically the result of political or commercial manipulation on a vast scale and that the entire system and culture is so colossally fucked, it's just better to quit giving a shit and play video games instead.

    I mean, https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]

    Gen-X says "come sit down on the nihilism bench by us and watch it burn."
    Congratulations Sr. Gramsci, you guys are winning.

  • The article came across as more of a marketing blurb than a serious analysis, so I didn't make it very far, but I'm really curious about what this actually means. For example, if Zoomers are watching game streams, instead of playing games, does that mean that they're playing less? On the one hand, yes, but on the other hand, they're still just as engaged with video games as the older generation. But I do think that Gen Z has a greater affinity for social media than Millennials and something needs to be d

  • Well, if they aren't playing video games, learning musical instruments, or even fucking as much, what exactly are they doing? I hope it's productive, whatever it is.

  • suspect the dataset is flawed, a poor sample. i mean. fandom lol. but assuming that it genuinely is a diverse set, the trick to marketing to us is stop making f2p bullshit with 17$ skins, not enough of this generation is absolutely stupid enough to skip paying rent, or mortgage if one of us is so lucky, for free to play macotransaction crap. also skill level: recently i found all my old quake 1-3 installs including all the old bots and training scripts to instant launch and got destroyed. my 37yro ass cant
  • I'm not surprised. My own kids, now all in their early twenties, were far more interesting in watching streams or youtube videos of other people playing games, than in playing them themselves.

    I expect younger kids are too busy watching the toktiks and doing dances or whatever.

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