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Decline US Adults Are Spending Big On Video Games, Playing Mostly On Smartphones

Phos

Guest
U.S. adults are spending big on video games, playing mostly on smartphones

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The average American video gamer is 33 years old, prefers to play on their smartphone and is spending big on content — 20 percent more than a year ago and 85 percent more than in 2015, a report showed on Thursday.

The annual research from the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) comes as more American households rethink how to set limits for kids who love gaming and how to allocate their entertainment budgets in the streaming era.

The $43.4 billion spent in 2018 was mostly on content, as opposed to hardware and accessories. Of pay-to-play games, “Call of Duty: Black Ops III”, “Red Dead Redemption II” and “NBA 2K19” took the top spots for most units sold but the list did not include free games such as “Fortnite.”

“Games are striking an important chord with American culture,” said Stanley Pierre-Louis, ESA’s acting president and chief executive officer. “That’s what makes it the leading form of entertainment today.”

Nearly 65 percent of U.S. adults, or more than 164 million people, play games. The most popular genre is casual games, with 60 percent of players gaming on their smartphones, though about half also play on personal computers and specialized consoles.

Parents are limiting screen time for their kids and using video game ratings to screen content, and 87 percent of parents require permission for new game purchases, the study showed.

Some 46 percent of all gamers are female, though they favor different kinds of games than men, particularly depending on age.

Female gamers between 18 and 34 years old prefer “Candy Crush”, “Assassin’s Creed” and “Tomb Raider” and play most often on smartphones, while their male counterparts mostly play games on consoles, particularly “God of War”, “Madden NFL” and “Fortnite.”

Gen Xers, who are 40 to 54 years old, lean towards “Tetris”, “Pac-Man”, “Call of Duty”, “Forza” and “NBA 2K.”

Male baby boomers aged 55 to 64 like “Solitaire” and “Scrabble”, while women lean towards “Mahjong” and “Monopoly.”

Game players were no more prone than other Americans to live isolated, sedentary lives, according to the report.

Americans will soon have even more ways to play video games.

Apple Inc is launching a game subscription service and Alphabet Inc’s Google announced a video game streaming service late this year.

The new services will present challenges to established video game developers like Electronic Arts Inc, maker of “Apex Legends”; Tencent Holdings Ltd’s Riot Games, maker of “League of Legends”; Valve Corp, owner of “Counter-Strike” and the Steam distribution platform; and Activision Blizzard Inc, owner of “Call of Duty” and “Candy Crush.”

Ipsos gathered data from more than 4,000 Americans to conduct the study for the ESA.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...-on-video-games-playing-mostly-on-smartphones

Humanity is doomed. Where is the reset button?
 

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
:despair:


Game players were no more prone than other Americans to live isolated, sedentary lives, according to the report.

:lol:

Gen Xers, who are 40 to 54 years old, lean towards “Tetris”, “Pac-Man”

Male baby boomers aged 55 to 64 like “Solitaire” and “Scrabble”, while women lean towards “Mahjong” and “Monopoly.”

Yes, I'm sure many of them play those on a regular basis in the current year :roll:
 
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Catacombs

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 10, 2017
Messages
5,928
:despair:


Game players were no more prone than other Americans to live isolated, sedentary lives, according to the report.

:lol:

Gen Xers, who are 40 to 54 years old, lean towards “Tetris”, “Pac-Man”

Male baby boomers aged 55 to 64 like “Solitaire” and “Scrabble”, while women lean towards “Mahjong” and “Monopoly.”

Yes, I'm sure many of them play those on a regular basis in the current year :roll:

I'm not a boomer and enjoy Wordfeud, which is basically Scrabble. I bought the game because I hate the ads between turns, and it has been a great decision. I also enjoy shitting on the boomers who do play the game.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
My 70 year old mother plays those candy puzzle games a lot.
I'd imagine it's better for old people to be doing that than spending the time watching TV. Puzzles stimulate the brain and stuff
 

DalekFlay

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 5, 2010
Messages
14,118
Location
New Vegas
Never understood why I'm supposed to be upset about this shit. I mean it's annoying my wife has her head buried in 2048 or Candy Crush sometimes, but whatever. I like "real" games being more niche. Mainstream fucks everything up. Most of the bullshit you guys bitch about with articles demanding easy modes and female heroes and shit is all because of games getting more mainstream. Let the majority play puzzle shit on their phones, I'm happy to keep them away.
 

Poseidon00

Arcane
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
2,039
Good, let the normies and whales get corralled into the mobile market while the PC genre goes back to being a somewhat obscure niche area with lots of quality content being put out like in the 90's.

I can dream right.
 
Joined
Jan 4, 2014
Messages
795
I got an iphone a while ago and have played several different games on it. One thing I"ve noticed is the games, despite me trying to buy the ones I like, tend to be much simpler than the ones I've played on my pc. I first started playing PC games in 1994. I played some console games, starting with atari, to nintendo and turobgrafx 16, and on to the playstation and nintendo 64. But in sheer hours, I spent more time on my pc. I couldn't find anytyhing on the consoles like what I had on the pc. I don't even mean the power of the processor either, I mean niche simulations and obscure games--things which wouldn't be commercial enough on a console. And it's true today, but i'm not playing consoles anymore, instead I'm playing on the iphone. I think one of the reasons the games on iphone are simpler is because they're made with the interface (and battery) in-mind. For the case of my iphone it's touchscreen and I think most people don't get a game controller for them. It's also a small screen. The result is games are constrained by the medium we use to interact with them.

More than anything, I find the experience of playing a game on my iphone much less comfortable.
a) i have to hold it up
b) the screen seems smaller--so much so I tried those magnifier glasses, and it didn't help much even at 3x
c) i hate how my fingers use large areas of screenspace when interacting--although this wouldn't be a problem if i used a game controller
d) touchscreens frequently give me pain... like buttons too small or not pressing it right since I can't FEEL the button
e) it takes much longer to enter a sentence or paragraph... like in an mmo--and when i use the speech to text it's slower than just typing it on my pc keyboard

However, iphone game sare portable and you can take them wherever you go--like work. That to me is the biggest benefit. But when it comes to the outright power of immersion and depth and comfort, nothing beats my pc--and I mean nothing. It's like a universe in a box.

Right now I infrequently play Astronest on the iphone. I slowly raise up the ranks like a snail. On my pc I'm playing Wurm Online and toying with Steam games.

Rathger than trying to make a pc into a mobile or a mobile into a pc, I think it's better just to use them for what they're good at.
 
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Wyatt_Derp

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2019
Messages
3,062
Location
Okie Land
Wait until AugCog/NeuralLink shows up. Remember that Star Trek TNG episode 'The Game'? Yeah, that'll be it. Nothing like watching millions of ppl staring blankly at a wall as they toss around colored balls with their minds.

If you're a cynical but opportunist type, now might be the time to look into neural link IPOs. The money will flow like wine.
 

Forest Dweller

Smoking Dicks
Joined
Oct 29, 2008
Messages
12,196
I was somewhat engaged in reading until they mentioned Scrabble and Monopoly.

If you're going to include board games might as well have football, tic-tac-toe, and pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey thrown in for good measure.
 

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