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Gamers aged 55+ account for almost a third of gamers now, and that share is on the rise.
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this post was submitted on 30 May 2024
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I see your point, but I'm not sure I would argue gaming is an expensive hobby. You can pick up a second-hand console and a handful of games under $500. PC gaming is a different beast (obviously).
To me this number just makes logical sense. A 55 year old could easily have grown up playing video games and leaning into that towards and into retirement seems like a pretty normal next step.
I would fully expect and hope that when I retire in ~25 years I'll join the ranks of older gamers.
When a single game costs $70 I’d call it an expensive hobby.
Sure, you can buy an old gen console and only purchase old second hand games, but modern gaming is expensive.
$70 at release. Unless you need a play a game right now that price can easily drop by half or more if you wait a year for sales. There are almost no games I buy on day-one anymore.
This has the added bonus of them usually being patched to be less buggy with more quality of life improvements.
Also, $70 is still pretty cheap in the grand scheme of hobbies. Google tells me the average price of a movie ticket is $11. So rounded up that's 1 game = 6.5 movies. If a movie is 2 hours long that's 13 hours of enjoyment. I can easily sink 50+ hours into an AAA title (hell my wife just put 110 hours into FF VII Rebirth). That doesn't count replayability.
That’s my point though, movies are also considered a pretty expensive hobby. People aren’t going to theaters and piracy is sky high currently because it’s simply getting too expensive for a single movie ticket. Tickets near me, for example, are $15 minimum, with some being over $20. So for my family to go to the movies it could be $100 minimum for one movie, and god forbid anyone wants snacks.
And just like gaming, you can simply wait for every movie you want to watch to end up in the bargain bin on dvd, but imo that’s a different discussion entirely. When people talk about a hobby being expensive, they’re usually not talking about the lowest possible entry point.
I guess it would be more accurate to say that gaming and movies can be expensive, not that they inherently are. Like, you can grab a Steam Deck and solely stick to grabbing indie games during sales and ultimately not spend that much, at least relative to the alternative.
Not all gamers are triple A gamers. I'd call myself an avid gamer (I used to put in easily 80 hour weeks gaming, now it's almost always lower, but I'll still go on gaming binges during long vacations or holidays).
The vast, vast majority of my time has been WoW and LoL. I have played other games throughout the years, but usually in the same genres (mmo/moba).
A lot of these games have entry fees of below $70. Right now most of my gaming time is cata classic, and that requires $15 a month. Over time that will obviously add up, but everything adds up overtime, and $15 a month is not prohibitively expensive for most people. Also it's really only $15 for the first month, just by leveling in cata classic to max you make enough to buy a wow token, and can easily pay $0 a month every month by just using in game currency.
Man, have you ever tried bowling or god forbid golf, movies, or guns?
I've got games where I've paid the equivalent of less than a dollar per hour of entertainment and that's after optional micro-transactions.
Oh I agree, I addressed all of that in another comment. Even used movies as an example lol.
Back in my day, you paid $20-$30 for a new cartridge or tape and you fucking loved it. That's about $60-$90 in today's money.
The purchase price hasn't changed much, it's the add on expansions, online access, micro transactions, and miscellaneous bullshit.
You can buy a steam deck and play effectively an unlimited number of hours worth of cheap games. Not going to be everyone's cup of tea of course but it's definitely a very accessible way to game price wise.
Totally agree, I actually brought up the Steam Deck in another comment
When I was a teenager in the early 2000s, typical retail price for a game was $50.
That's equivalent to about $85 today.
The vast majority of the games I buy today are well under $50.
But average buying power is lower today, so dollar value alone doesn't tell the whole story.
I would expect someone's whose 55 is probably more interested in classic games anyway. An older friend of mine was in his 20s during the 80s and has fond memories of the arcades, Atari and NES. So that's what he plays.
That would actually be interesting stats, how many play more older vs newer games. I tend to have phases where I mostly play older games and later go back to newer ones.
PC gaming is much cheaper. A desktop, while being more expensive initially, will last much longer than a console. And the games on PC are much, much cheaper.
Sometimes they're free! 🏴☠️
I would say that the Steamdeck no longer makes PC gaming a different beast. Prior to that you would definitely lose people in self builds and budgeting complexities.