The big age gap in video games

Back in the 2000s, a friend of mine once told me that he thought it was inappropriate to say “video games” as if it represented one single thing.

He believed that games could be divided into three categories. The first category he identified were single player games, which have been around for decades. The second category were competitive multiplayer games, primarily first-person shooters, which were the dominant genre of mainstream games at the time. The third category were cooperative multiplayer games, primarily MMORPGs, which were slowly losing importance but still generated significant revenue.

In his view, you can't claim that these are all the same thing just because they're interactive electronic entertainment. They were too different, not just in mechanics and purpose, but also in the people who played them, the subcultures that surrounded them, and even the terminology that described them. These groups were too separate; they didn't have much respect or like each other. So why lump them together in the same group?

Whether or not this was true at the time, I think it has become truer in recent times. Over the past decade or so, the video game industry has become increasingly fragmented by genre, platform, developer type, and subculture. Where once “video games” was a standalone category, it has now become something of an all-encompassing supercategory.

But when we envisioned these three categories back then, we imagined the players had certain commonalities: they spoke different languages ​​and had different tastes, but they were still men in their teens to late twenties, and while they might have sounded different, they looked similar.

But that's no longer the case. As the industry has grown, it has also divided along demographic lines. Gender and nationality are important, of course, but it's age that divides the industry most deeply. This is obviously important to people in the industry, but it's also useful information for anyone who talks about video games on a regular basis.

Age Difference Definition

Age is a really reasonable starting point for segmenting the video game player population. You can split it into three groups: under 25, 25-45, and over 45. If you want to really break it down, you can break it down even further than that. When I looked at the surveys, I saw a lot of people breaking it down from the youngest category to minors to reflect the rise of new generations. Some people break it down even further.

No matter where you draw the line, there are differences between these groups in almost every way that matters: how they play games, how they buy games, how they learn about games, what platforms they use and prefer, and of course the types of games they prefer.

One interesting tidbit of information on demographic differences comes from Gametree's Global Gamer Insights Report. The study, conducted in 2019, focuses on subjective preferences between different groups, rather than ownership rates, playtime, etc. It found that within these groups, the youngest cohorts (mostly middle and high school students) have a very strong preference for mobile, moving to PC as they enter their 20s, then to consoles in their 30s and 40s, and then back to mobile again in their 50s.

Naturally, there were differences in the games played, but this begs the question of causality: the youngest generations prefer common games on mobile, but does that mean they prefer mobile devices because they have those games, or does it mean they prefer games that are on mobile devices they have access to?

While causation likely runs in both directions, there is evidence of a divide within the mobile market as well: the oldest and youngest players have different preferences even within mobile-specific genres, according to a GameMakers report: there are just not as many games that young people play with their parents.

Can't you all get in touch?

Every now and then we see a commentator embarrass himself when he tries to talk about video games, a subject he clearly does not understand. Whatever other mistakes these commentators make, they always start with the same essential error: that video games are made for children and that they are primarily played by children.

Of course, you and I both know that this is not true, and hasn't been true for over 30 years. Many of the people making these mistakes haven't even thought about video games in 30 years. They've pinned their understanding of the industry to a time when ignorant parents still called the Genesis “Sega Nintendo,” and when the majority of gamers were actually underage.

However, this is a mistake that almost everyone makes, albeit in a more subtle way. We all understand a concept at a certain point in time and then rarely or never reevaluate that understanding. When it comes to gaming, most people form concepts during early adolescence, and this fixed image influences their understanding of the industry.

I've learned a lesson from this myself: while developing my own YouTube channel, primarily about indie games, I noticed that the audience was overwhelmingly similar to me, and even though the audience for video-based game news is very young, there are relatively few viewers in their 20s and almost no viewers in their teens.

The reason is simple: I'm not working with the types of games they like. While indie games tend to be diverse and experimental, most of the games I feature in my videos, Indie Monthly, and other publications are mechanically rooted in a handful of genres that were standard for console and PC games of the '90s and 2000s: RPGs, platformers, first-person shooters, turn-based strategies, and so on.

If you're under the age of 20, these genres are likely familiar to you. But if you came of age after the rise of mobile gaming and the live service model, these aren't what you think of when you hear “video games.” Chances are, your gaming experience is very different than mine; you probably don't think of Final Fantasy any more than I do of Defender or Space Invaders.

We may have the same tastes, but we don't really speak the same language. Ask a 14-year-old, a 24-year-old, a 34-year-old and a 44-year-old what a video game is on a conceptual level and you're likely to get four very different answers.

Global Market

With gaming now reaching far beyond the traditional Western and Japanese markets, we also need to consider how nationality affects all of this. Western writers tend to focus on what Western video games are like, but this is now a very global industry. Nationality and region already play a big role in how people play games, and that will change even more as younger audiences from these emerging regions start to exert their influence.

In 2022, YouGov Global Profiles conducted a survey on home entertainment around the world. The results showed that the highest rates of console ownership were in Western Europe and North America, mature markets that have seen only slight growth or contraction each year. In contrast, emerging markets such as North Africa, India and Southeast Asia have very low ownership rates, which is not surprising. For console manufacturers, these appear to be areas of potential growth.

As we've said before, ownership is so low in mainland East Asia that consoles are essentially irrelevant. This is primarily an issue of access, with consoles being restricted in Korea and China for a long time and still rare and expensive in China. This is important to remember because access issues are also the main reason why younger gamers in more developed regions prefer mobile and PC. Whether you're a middle schooler in the US or a college student in China, it's easier to play games on a smartphone you already own than on a console you have to buy.

Growth in emerging video game markets in Africa and Asia is being driven by young people. These young gamers are accustomed to watching games on computers, especially mobile devices. The question is, will they gravitate towards consoles as access increases, or will they stick to what they're familiar with?

The future is never certain

All of this will change, of course. Social trends may be harder to predict than anything else in the world: something from one corner of the internet becomes trendy, then mainstream, then indispensable, then a nuisance, then it's replaced by a half-dozen alternatives and forgotten about.

The video game market has already evolved in unpredictable ways. Premium single-player games were supposed to be dead, but now they're a big hit. The handheld market was completely destroyed by mobile, but now dedicated handhelds have carved out a niche for themselves and people are wondering if it will ever come back. The growing female demographic has not only created a whole new category of “cozy games,” but is also reviving genres long forgotten as a thing of the past, such as adventure games and JRPGs.

Needless to say, all of this isn't age-driven. The media loves the simple story of kids these days ruining this or that, but the truth is never that simple. In fact, the impetus for this article was an industry analyst's claim that the console market was declining due to age demographics, but he was later forced to retract that claim because his data didn't actually show that. Console sales have actually been on a slight upward trend over the past decade, and only appear to be declining because 2008 was an unusually strong year for hardware.

My (honestly half-informed) take is that the youth market isn't all that important. Gamers over 25 make up a larger percentage of consumers and spend more money. You have to think that it's this group that's driving the industry. But the video game industry isn't one thing anymore. The youth market is its own little ecosystem, and that ecosystem is driven by kids.

I write this because when we discuss video games, we often end up talking about completely different things, which can lead to our disagreements. We are entering a world where no one knows everything, and the way to deal with that is to be humble enough to ask questions and listen.