In 2022, the video game industry generated more than 180.000 million dollars, according to a report from The report of Statista. Of that figure, half (92,000 million) came from the mobile, 51.000 million came from consoles and 40.000 million from computers. The ubiquity of smartphones in today's world has only increased the importance of video games in culture. The video game market is worth $229.400 billion and is expected to exceed $2027 billion by 400.000.
Such has been the rise of video games that they have become a genre within the sports field: eSports or electronic sports. Large structured competitions are organized where thousands of players or Gamers They participate for important prizes. It's quite a discipline.
En Datos ÚN We set out to explore the taste for video games and the reach it has among our audience. For this, we published a digital survey on our web portal and social networks and between Monday, September 4 and Thursday, September 7, 478 people participated. The results are the following.
they play and quite a lot
We asked participants if they currently play video games. We obtained that a resounding majority of almost two thirds (65,7%) affirms yes.
We separated the data by age and gender, to get a more detailed picture of the proportion of people who play video games. We can see that in the case of men the proportion of players rises to 68,5% and in the case of women it drops to 57,9%.
When we look at it by age groups we have that the youngest are the ones who play the most and as the age increases the percentage of players decreases. In the 15 to 30 year old group we obtained an impressive 91,4% of people who claim to play video games. In the second group, people between 31 and 45 years old, the proportion is 64,1%. It is in the 46-60 year old sector that the middle line is crossed to reach 41,7% and in those over 60 years of age the proportion of video game players reaches only 12,6%.
From here, we are left with only those who responded that they do play video games. We asked them to say how often they play and in the case of the total players, 46,9% responded that they do it every day, 26,8% say they play 1 to 3 days a week and 26,3% say they only play. He does it from time to time.
When we see it separated by sex, we have that men who play every day reach 48,8%, while in the case of women this reaches 40,5%.
When looking at it by age we found something interesting, the group where the lowest proportion of players who play every day was reported is between 46 and 60 years old, with 20,8%. In the group over 60 years old, 40% said they played daily, a similar proportion to that of the group between 31 and 45 years old. As expected, the sector where there are the most people who play video games daily is in the 15 to 30 age group, where the figure reaches 55,5%.
Regarding the time that players dedicate to video games, a clear majority (56%) says they play 1 to 3 hours a day. But almost 30% dedicate more than that. 23,2% spend 3 to 6 hours a day playing video games and 6,4% say they spend more than 6 hours a day. We also have, at the other extreme, that 14,4% say that they play less than 1 hour daily.
Computer and phone
You might think that video games are played mostly on consoles, with the famous controls, but the data reflects a different reality. We ask our players to indicate the devices they normally play with and the most mentioned are the computer with 37,3% and the smartphone with 35,7%. Consoles reach 27%, distributed as follows: PlayStation 14,7%, Nintendo Switch 6,5% and XBox 6,8%.
The differences by sex indicate that men play more on the computer (39,6%) and women play more on the smartphone (45,6%).
Then we directly ask which platform is the preferred one to play on.
We have half, 50,1%, said they prefer to play on the computer. 31% prefer consoles and 4% prefer smartphones. If we look at it by sex, men prefer the computer (18,5%) and women prefer the smartphone (54,3%).
Regarding age groups, the console only prevails in the 31 to 45 year old sector, with 40,7% preference. In the rest of the groups, the taste leans towards the computer.
How do they do that
We asked participants in our digital survey to indicate whether they prefer to play solo or multiplayer. The majority (53,1%) prefer to play with others.
When separating the data by sex, we find that more women prefer to play alone (52,7%) and more men like to do it with others (56,1%).
And when looking at it by age, the jump in distribution is interesting: those aged 15-30 prefer to play in a group, those aged 31-45 prefer to play alone, those aged 46-60 prefer to play in a group and those over 60 prefer to play alone.
When they play multiplayer, 72,1% would rather do it online than in person.
they like to shoot
We also asked how much gamers spend on video games per month. Nearly three-quarters say they invest $10 or less. Which means that only 1 in 4 invests more than that amount.
When separated by sex, we can see that men spend a little more than women on video games. 14,8% say they spend between 10 and 20 dollars (women: 8,1%), 6,8% spend between 50 and 100 dollars (women: 4,5%) and 7,3% say they invest more than 100 dollars monthly in video games (women: 2,4%).
Let's now see which are the favorite video games. We had participants choose between the following categories, indicating some popular games in each of them:
- Shooters (Call of Duty, Valorant, Counter-Strike)
- RPG (Starfield, Elden Ring, Mass Effect, Baldur's Gate 3, Persona 5)
- Action (GTA V, BioShock, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Resident Evil)
- Adventure (The Legend of Zelda, Hogwarts Legacy, God of War)
- Casual (Among Us, Candy Crush, Gang Beasts, Stumble Guys)
- Indie (Hotline Miami, Hyper Light Drifter, Blasphemous)
- MMO (World of Warcraft, SWTOR, Lost Ark, New World)
- Degree Courses (Need For Speed, Forza Horizon 5, Gran Turismo 7)
- Simulation (The Sims, Farming Simulator, Cities: Skylines)
- Sports (FIFA, NBA 2K, MLB The Show, Rocket League)
- Strategy (Age of Empires, Rimworld, Civilization VI)
- MOBA (League of Legends, Dota 2, Smite, Mobile Legends)
- Battle Royale (Warzone, Fortnite, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Free Fire)
- Fight (Street Fighter, Super Smash Bros, Tekken, Guilty Gear)
The ranking was as follows:
The most popular category is “Shooters”, which are shooting games, with 48,2%. Then comes “Action” with 37,6% and “Adventure” with 37,3%. They follow those of “Fighting” with 30,6%, “Racing” with 28,6%, “Sports” with 27,5%, Battle Royale” and “Casual” with 25,5% each, “MOBA” with 24,3 .23,5%, “Simulation” and “RPG” with 23,1% each, “Strategy” with 15,7% and the “Indie” and “MMO” categories close the list with 14,5% and XNUMX% respectively.
When we look at it by sex, we find that women prefer the “Casual” category (50,8%), “Simulation” (40%) and “Adventure” (40%), while men lean toward “Shooters” ( 53,7%) and “Action” (41,6%).
When looking at it by age, the fact stands out that the only group where the “Shooters” category is not in first place is that of 46-60 years old, where “Action” and “Sports” lead with 35,8% each, although “Shooters” follows closely with 34%.
Much content
Since video games are a common activity for a good number of people, as we have seen in this report, it is possible to assume that content on this topic is also quite popular. That's why we asked gamers in our survey how often they consume video game content.
35,9% said they consume it every day and 29,8% said they do it several times a week. This means that we have frequent consumption of content gamer among players greater than 65%.
When differentiating by sex, we observe that men view content more frequently gamer, with 40,2% stating that they do it every day. Meanwhile, the largest segment among female gamers, at 32%, was those who said they watch this content several times a week.
El streaming, or video transmitted over the internet, is very popular content in culture gamer. They can be championships, professional players in action, news or commentators commenting on any aspect related to the topic. We asked our players if they frequently watch streaming content about video games and more than half, 74%, responded affirmatively: 52,9% do it “from time to time” and 21,1% say they do it “always.” One in four gamers says they “never” watch streaming video game content.
Then we ask about the platform through which this content mostly reaches them. YouTube is the favorite channel for video game content. 72,2% claim to consume content gamer by this way. Websites follow with 42% and then there are Twitch with 25,5%, Facebook with 22,7% and TikTok with 22%.
In the distribution by sex, we have that the dominance of YouTube is similar in both cases.
When looking at it by age, we observe that the strong position that YouTube has in this niche is mainly due to the groups of 15 to 30 years old and 31 to 45 years old. In the two largest groups, the first place goes to web pages.
More than just play
We finished our survey with some questions about video game-related activities beyond just playing. We asked players if they usually attend events on this topic and half (51%) responded affirmatively. 37,6% prefer to go to in-person events and 13,7% prefer those held online.
Then we ask if they have participated in the development of any video games. Only 5,7% answered yes.
We also ask them to say if they participate or have participated in any electronic sports organization. 21,9% said yes, meaning that at least 1 in every 5 players is part of this type of group.
A massive idiotization. A new culture in the making