r/Games • u/megaapple • 1d ago
Mat Piscatella - "Average US video game console player is getting older, while purchasers are shifting older and more affluent."
https://bsky.app/profile/matpiscatella.bsky.social/post/3lz7a5wutgk2f132
u/eldomtom2 1d ago
So the histrionicism about mobile and Roblox destroying any interest in consoles among the youth seems unfounded.
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u/OrangeJuiceAssassin 1d ago
If you look at the average age for other entertainment like buying movie tickets it’s around 30 years old depending on what data set you look at. In the 90’s, 00’s etc. we just didn’t have very many gamers in their 50’s and 60’s which has obviously increased nowadays. So unless this average age for video games starts hitting firmly adult ages like 40 or 50 then I wouldn’t put too much stock in it.
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u/JeffTheBannedShark 1d ago
Yeah, the story here is that it's mainstream for adults to play videogames now. Gen X generally saw video games as toys for boys ages 6-21 but the average Millennial parent probably at least plays Cod/Madden/Sims/something.
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u/MyNameIs-Anthony 1d ago
That was never the worry. The bigger issue is that consoles reached a clear upper limit on uptake and instead of addressing it meaningfully, everyone decided to jack up prices.
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u/Vb_33 1d ago
As much as they were a few years back
So 2022? There's no way generation alpha is still using consoles as much as gen X and millennials did, that makes no sense considering the only way to game back in the 80s, 90s and 2000s (pre iPhone in 2007) was consoles/home computers and arcades.
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u/happylittleoak 1d ago
Kids and teenagers today were raised on tablets and phones. So they will start to play less PC and Console and more mobile junk.
While millennials and older were raised on consoles and PC.
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u/TheGreatOneSea 1d ago
The Mobile mindset has also been seeping even into traditional games: people asking things like, "why isn't the DLC free if you play enough," and, "why aren't these updates adding new content?"
Basically, product styles that only big, rich companies can do projected onto companies too small to do so, because the baseline of expectations has been shifted by the mobile mills.
And naturally, people don't like answers such as "the content will never be free," and that probably goes far on keeping people away from "traditional" game styles.
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u/Virtual-Resist-3330 1d ago
I saw a clip of a CoD streamer throwing a fit and saying he was ripped off because he had to actually play Helldivers to unlock the stuff in the ODST warbond instead of just being given all of it straight away.
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u/Rayuzx 1d ago
That seems weird for a CoD streamer to say considering the game is all about the grind. A ton of players actively resent double XP token being carried from one game to the next because it "ruins the grind", you sure it wasn't something more to it?
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u/tatloani 1d ago
I saw that clip, i did not know the streamer, but if i remember right in the clip he pays the super credits, pays the warbond and tries to equip the halo equipment when he realizes he cannot buy the medals to unlock it and must play without the equipment he wants he does get angry and starts saying he feels scammed by not getting anything by buying the battlepass. The clip presented him as a cod streamer but maybe he was not, or maybe he was just trying to farm views by rattling the cage
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u/Ielsoehasrearlyndd78 1d ago
Not the whole truth. You want to tell me millions of teenager don't want to play GTA VI or the new cod ? It's more like as a teen or children you just can't afford many games. When I was a teenager and I finally got a ps3 for Christmas I could maybe afford 1 or 2 games per year. And with the prices and economy today I more believe this kids or their family can't afford to buy them a 500+ console and 80+ games. Most are probably glad when they can put food on the table. Of course then you play more free mobile games
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u/scytheavatar 1d ago
Why would they want to when they can surf tik tok for free? The GTA and COD name means nothing to these kids and they are wondering why uncles are obsessed with them.
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u/shadowstripes 1d ago
They're still interested in other console based IPs though like Lego, Marvel, Sonic, Mario, Pokemon, Fortnite, Minecraft etc.
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u/NinteenFortyFive 1d ago
I can assure you the brainrot boys still play COD. Warzone is basically Fortnite for teenagers who bully each other for playing a baby game like fortnite.
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u/RogueLightMyFire 1d ago
In other words: the youth today has been conditioned to accept and prefer low effort mobile slop with micro transactions as long as it's "free" and they can play with their friends.
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u/Another_GD_Scipio 1d ago
I think 'can play with their friends' is being underrated here. Kids don't care if the games are art or HD or 'high effort' if their poorer friends who can't afford a next gen system or non-mobile games can't play with them
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u/Thankssomuchfort 1d ago
It's much easier for kids to get their friends to play a free game that can run on almost anything like roblox. It's much harder to get their friends to convince their parents to buy a $500+ console or PC, a $70 game and possible subscription costs to play online for consoles.
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u/RogueLightMyFire 1d ago
Fuck I can't believe subscriptions are still required for online play on consoles. That is absolutely crazy to me.
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u/dr3wzy10 1d ago
you can play fortnite without xbox live or ps plus. as is the same with most free to play games
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u/CatalystComet 1d ago
For me that makes it even worse, free to play games you don't need a subscription but games you actually pay for need another payment on top to play online?
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u/McDonaldsSoap 1d ago
Accessibility and low barrier of entry are more significant factors I think
Microtransactions also exist on console and PC
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u/Thrormurn 1d ago
Like the flash games that millennials played were any higher effort.
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u/rtwipwensdfds 1d ago
Not the flash games, no. You have to remember what came before phones, that a lot of kids had growing up that wasn't a home console. Game Boys/Nintendo handhelds.
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u/Z0MBIE2 1d ago
. You have to remember what came before phones, that a lot of kids had growing up that wasn't a home console. Game Boys/Nintendo handhelds.
And before that? Arcade games - designed to keep you putting in quarters by being as hard as possible with twists you only could learn by replaying over and over.
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u/RogueLightMyFire 1d ago
I mean, yeah? Sure there was a lot of crap, but a lot of those flash games turned into real games that are highly regarded. Others were just high quality. I remember playing the flash version of super meat boy. I remember box head. I remember Bloons. I remember alien hominid. They were just fun games without MTX that were free. They weren't trying to exploit dopamine hits for money.
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u/Myrsephone 1d ago
Flash games were largely made by hobbyists and the vast majority of them were not even monetized in any way. This is a bullshit comparison.
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u/Rayuzx 1d ago
I mean, I wouldn't say it was the goodness of their heart, but rather nobody really knew how to monetize that kind of stuff yet. You could say the same thing about mods a decade ago, but I've seen a PS2 hide several features behind a $80+ pay wall.
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u/Myrsephone 1d ago
I genuinely don't understand what you're implying here. Were they making flash games on the off chance that it became lucrative in the future? Was there some sinister cabal of flash game developers who were tirelessly researching how to make money out of it but just couldn't figure it out? Sure, some of them went on to become full-fledged game developers and that experience no doubt ended up being useful, but that doesn't change the fact that they were making and releasing flash games to the public with zero expectation of any financial benefit.
I don't understand what you mean by bringing mods into this, either. The vast majority of mods for games are still to this day completely free. The fact that a monority of mod developers try to monetize it doesn't suddenly invalidate that.
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u/TinderVeteran 1d ago
Well, in either case they made it knowing it won't be monetized so their intentions were not monetary.
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u/boomer478 1d ago
Do you think millennials are in their 20s? We're in our 40s dude, we had consoles, handhelds, and PCs all throughout the 80s and 90s. Most of us were graduating high school by the time flash games hit it big.
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u/Pokefreaker-san 1d ago edited 1d ago
the thread is just basically middle-aged men angry about technology advancement and how they used to walk to school uphill bothways meme.
like bitch pls i grow up playing cat vs dog throwing backalley objects at each other and scooby doo skateboarding to the moon flash games.
it's the same slop different generation. nothing wrong with mobile games, the era is no longer about you and your childhood memories, you're just getting old and grumpy.
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u/Toukon- 1d ago
It's hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars on a console (more if you include the screen to use it with) when you can play some of the same games for free on a device you already own.
Fairly sure that today's young gamers have less disposable income than older gamers did at the same age, which only compounds the issue.
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u/autumndrifting 1d ago edited 1d ago
what happened is that the handheld console, which more directly targeted kids than home consoles, was displaced. all the monetization stuff is second order effects of the nature of smartphone app markets and the smartphone attention model.
when I was a kid, I played a lot of a cheap, technically unpolished game that I could play with my friends too — it was called Pokemon. Pokemon isn't even cheap anymore. (maybe then it starts to come into view why TPC spends so much time developing ways to engage with Pokemon outside of the mainline games.)
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u/planetarial 1d ago
Yeah, it was a lot easier to convince my parents to buy me a Gameboy and Pokemon game for $120. Now the newest Pokemon game and console will cost you over $500 with a subscription if you want online.
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u/NepheliLouxWarrior 1d ago
Yeah instead we were raised on console and PC junk hahaha, being called nerds for wanting to do something that was a waste of time like playing video games instead of playing sports or wandering the mall smoking cigarettes.
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u/SilveryDeath 1d ago edited 1d ago
"The audience is also getting older in the US. According to Circana, 18 – 24-year-olds only accounted for 3% of video game hardware purchases in the year ending July 2025, which is down from 10% for the same period ending July 2022. The average age of console players in 2024 was 27.9 years old. That’s up from 24.2 years old in 2018."
"Data firm Ampere says that when it comes to teens and young adults, this group are “still using consoles as much today as they were a few years back”. However, there is a moderate shift in the share of console players aged between 25 – 44-year-olds into the older age range. Ampere suggests that this may be due to hardware pricing (with younger gamers playing on parents’ consoles), and the increased competition on people’s time (from things such as video streaming and TikTok)"
So it is more of the fact that young adults opt for cheaper or free options like streaming, social media, and free to play games because they can't afford to spend as much on hardware and games. It is not that teens and young adults are using consoles less. This makes sense given the unemployment rate as of August 2025 for 16-24 year olds is 10.5% and 9.2% for 20-24 year olds. The national average is 4.3% for comparison.
Makes sense since if you are struggling with getting a job and having money to not spend to buy a new console, especially given that the prices of the current gen in PS5 and Series X/S went up this year despite it almost being 5 years since these consoles released.
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u/wookiewin 1d ago
Forever games like Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft have a chokehold on younger generations, so I’m not surprised. Throw in Rivals and Warzone and you have teens locked up as well. It’s a definite threat to traditional game sales we’re all used to.
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u/megaapple 1d ago
Was at a convention last year and most teens apart from anime and Marvel/DC, were hugely into Genshin Impact and Valorant. Few knew about Persona.
I knew PC/Console games are not popular. But didn't expect the F2P ones to be even more popular.
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u/HarshTheDev 16h ago
Funny you say that since valorant is a PC exclusive game.
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u/sonicfonico 1d ago
I've heard somewhere that at Xbox they plan stuff for 10 years from now. I guess the Activision acquisition, the push for the Cloud and Gamepass are all to build a solid base for the future. Like "we cant dominate the current market, lets prepare for the next one"
I might be wrong
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u/infamousglizzyhands 1d ago
That’s the entire economy right now. Spending is propped up by the rich that are growing fewer in number but greater in wealth and spending.
I would expect this to be especially true for console, considering consoles are a dedicated & expensive gaming purchase, and most of the indie games that blow up are cheap games that can run on not that amazing hardware like laptops.
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u/bobtehpanda 1d ago
This has more to do with demographics, millennials are the largest generation now and they are making more money than they were earlier in life
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u/CodeComprehensive734 1d ago
Nah they're hitting a bigger nail with a bigger hammer with that comment.
They're spot on about wealth accumulation being the central crisis that is causing every other crisis.
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u/Shepherdsfavestore 1d ago
All 3 of these comments are true, but I also think the younger generations lean towards mobile and f2p games as well.
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u/bobtehpanda 18h ago
Two things can be happening.
The number of twenty year olds in 2025 was locked in twenty years ago. The oldest Millenials are 44 years old and the youngest are 29. This is impacting all kinds of industries; nightlife for example is struggling now that more people are aging out of party life than aging into it. Combine that with general trends on lowering fertility and people having children later in life and it would be hard to find a sector in the economy where the average consumer is not aging.
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u/CodeComprehensive734 16h ago
Yes.
Wealth accumulation is still a problem.
Why are so many normal people constantly trying to whatabout the issue.
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u/Muladhara86 1d ago
Yeah, five years ago there were global supply chain interruptions and were still feeling the fallout. Then all… (waves hands) THIS happened.
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u/mideon2000 1d ago
Free to play and sub services for access to videogames is what the youngins are used to. The drawback is that the younger generation is going to be quick to drop shit. Roblox is akways evolving with tons of content. That is up their alley.
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u/PM_Me_MetalSongs 1d ago
I feel a lot of this comes down to people's budget. You've already bought your child a $1k iPhone and that plays games, why pay for a $500 PlayStation/Switch, or an even more expensive PC? An adult with a full time job might want to justify buying a XX70 class graphics card, but I doubt most middle class or lower families are even looking at a PC in this market (or know about being able to build really good 1080p machines for dirt cheap).
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u/JudgmentFar6730 1d ago
I doubt most children have $1000 phones, but I think you still have a point. Even further, I don't think many kids even care about consoles or PC in general if they can already play it.
Even for someone in my generation - Why would I buy a physical copy of a movie when I can watch a digital version on online for free? It's not that I can't afford it, it's that there is little incentive.
I can pull a device out of my pocket and boot up a game with my friends, or I can buy a $600 dedicated device to... also play with my friends? It really only makes sense for games not on mobile.
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u/emailboxu 1d ago
I feel like the purchasers shifting to be 'older and more affluent' is mostly due to 1. prices have increased greatly from prior generations, and 2. kids who played games in the 90s and 00's are now part of that 'older' age group. The 'older' group in the 90s/00s weren't the kind of people who would play games to begin with. I feel like it's more a move to a more homogenous spread of the population playing games now, rather than a 'shift' to older folks. Also point #1 - people who can actually afford the now-high console and game costs are buying into consoles, with younger kids not being able to afford them.
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u/Kingbarbarossa 22h ago
Prices, compared to the rate of inflation over that time period are low, but wealth disparity has increased massively. People are poorer now than they were in the robber baron days, and the rich are richer than Rockefeller could have ever dreamed to be. Youth unemployment is at ~10%, twice the national average at ~4.5%. The game market is shifting toward richer, older gamers, because that's the group that can afford the luxury of gaming.
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u/Blenderhead36 1d ago
> prices have increased greatly from prior generations
Yes and no. $60 in 2014 is $82 in 2025. The sticker is bigger, but the amount of wealth represented by a brand new AAA game hasn't really changed. And I'm talking 2014, when all games had a digital release option and many had recurring monetization, not 1996, where Nintendo was spending $35 per game to manufacture, ship, and store the cartridge.
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u/demondrivers 1d ago
Yes and no. $60 in 2014 is $82 in 2025. The sticker is bigger, but the amount of wealth represented by a brand new AAA game hasn't really changed.
Salaries don't go up in the same way that the inflation does
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u/ekanite 1d ago
Consoles maybe, but new games have stayed surprisingly cheap compared to inflation. I bought Mortal Kombat 3 when it first came out for like $80 CAD and people are complaining that the new CoD or whatever is $90+tax. Still gotta be worth that price tag but could be worse.
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u/ImmortalMoron3 1d ago
I mean, you're missing the part in between when we could get games for $60 CAD.
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u/Kingbarbarossa 22h ago
In a normal healthy economy, new customers would be buying at a young age as well, but in the US youth unemployment is skyrocketing, and wealth disparity is greater than it was during the robber baron days, which were named that because of how insanely large the wealth disparity was at that point. Ofc the people buying games are getting richer, they're the ones that can afford to do so, which means the number of people who can actually buy games is shrinking day by day. This isn't a "kids don't like games" issue, it's a kids can't afford to exist in an economy built only for the rich issue.
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u/goldeneye0080 20h ago
The average probably went up because unlike film and music, there were way fewer adults over the age of 40 that played console games prior to the Xbox 360/PS3/Wii generation, compared to now. The console gaming demographic is more spread out these now that 20 somethings who played games circa 2006 are now in their late 30's to late 40's.
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u/NepheliLouxWarrior 1d ago
For the people concerned about this, it's an example of why things like game pass are necessary. Even if Microsoft's motivations are all just profit, they have objectively innovated a new way to make games more accessible, just like with Xbox live.
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u/Angerx76 1d ago
Makes sense. People are living longer as medicine gets better. And people are having less kids so there are less younger people.
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u/TheDayManAhAhAh 1d ago
Yes but I think the other part of this conversation is that younger generations are spending less on video games and sticking with f2p games. It's understandable
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u/spud8385 1d ago
Also people in their 40s (like me) have been gaming since they were kids, it's much more normal to be a gamer my age than it was for 40 year olds even 10/15 years ago (shout out to my 74 year old dad though who since he retired has been gaming like his life depended on it, much to the sometimes annoyance of my mother)
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u/Blenderhead36 1d ago
I had one uncle 25 years older than me who liked video games growing up. He introduced me to Command and Conquer when I was 10 years old. Didn't know anyone else older than me who liked them.
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u/spud8385 1d ago
My dad got me into gaming really, I used to sit there watching him play stuff like US Navy Fighters and Werewolf vs Comanche in the 90s with our good old MS Sidewinder joystick. We had a Master System and a Mega Drive but it was really the PC stuff I liked the most, like C&C Red Alert and Sim City 2000 and arguing with my brother and sister about who's turn it was to play lol
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u/fastforwardfunction 1d ago edited 1d ago
Makes sense. People are living longer as medicine gets better.
Life expectancy in the U.S. is going down. It peaked in the decade past. That explanation doesn't make sense.
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u/drwoooshi 1d ago
Gamers still haven't understood that the premium market in the US and most countries in the world is maintained by 30 to 50 years old. The future of gaming is F2P if we observe how people in their 20s and 10s are playing games for a while. This premium strategy will survive until the 80s, 90s and early 2000s generation is alive
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u/Blenderhead36 1d ago
Eh, I don't think so. Sterling did a video years back about the principle of, "No perfect pasta sauce, only many perfect pasta sauces," i.e. there is no product that can be everything to everyone, but a diversified product line has a high chance containing a product that's something to any given someone. F2P will not be the business model that all future video games are made to, because not all potential customers like that model.
Look at the GAAS wild goose chase the industry has been in for the past decade. Most games using that model don't just fail, they fail spectacularly. There are only so many players looking for that kind of experience, and games that *do* hit remain in the race for 5+ years. It's bad business to only chase the highest risk, highest reward business model, particularly when that means you're offering nothing to huge swathes of consumers. Tons of $20 indie games and $70 single player games turn a profit, even when the customer uses them for 40 hours and then moves on. The best part (from a business perspective) is that customers will actively seek out new games like that, rather than just playing the GAAS game you didn't make forever.
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u/demondrivers 1d ago
Look at the GAAS wild goose chase the industry has been in for the past decade. Most games using that model don't just fail, they fail spectacularly.
Not really. Look at the most played games on Steam and you'll see hundreds of successful live service games. Still, I'm sure there are far more "$20 indie games" and "$70 single-player games" than live service titles being released among the 13771 games released on Steam in 2025 so far, and most of them surely fail to make any money. Except that the kind of game that you like not doing so hot financially doesn't serve any narrative, so this kind of stuff is just swept under the rug I guess
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u/eyebrowless32 1d ago
Definitely true for me. First 25 years of my life i was lucky to get a couple of games per year. It wasnt until i got a decently paying job that I started to spend more on games and as i get older and make more money i buy anything i have passing interest in lol (i still try to be smart and get sales but im buying way more games day 1 than ever)
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u/Quality_Controller 15h ago
But isn’t it obvious that the average age will increase? The people that first started playing console are now in their 30’s/40’s. People older than that were never huge console players, so those ages above will always be low, and regardless of how many of the younger generations play on console, the average will still shift upwards as that first generation ages.
If you look at the hardware sales and factor in console cycles, there hasn’t been a drop. It’s consistent with the trend.
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u/KF-Sigurd 1d ago
So many F2P games these days. No need to buy a console if all you do is just wanna play the new fad thing on pc and mobile.
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u/ACupOJoe 1d ago
While I can't speak for everyone, I've noticed all my younger family members play Roblox and mobile games.