Older Gamers a Key Growth Market

I knew there’s a reason that I created SPOG all those years ago…

Consumers aged 55+ account for almost a third of gamers now, and that share is on the rise.

A new report from Midia Research highlights the growing age of gamers and emphasises that developers and publishers are slowly starting to realise that many in the generation that grew up with Arcade Machines, the ZX Spectrum, and Atari consoles have got to the point in their lives where they have two crucial criteria that game publishers really like: time and disposable income.

Older players aren’t just on mobile – far from it

It is tempting to assume that older gamers exclusively play low-fidelity games on their smartphones. This is simply untrue.

While mobile is certainly the biggest part of the games market in terms of revenues, 55+ gamers account for 23% of monthly PC gamers and 11% of monthly console gamers. Yet, the product and marketing (e.g., campaigns and promotions) for games on these platforms mostly target younger players.

The influencers that publishers partner with –and music choices for trailers, for example – usually exclusively cater to younger gamers. A whole segment is not being addressed. Or worse, they feel alienated.


I’m in these graphs, and I like it!

Older players value single-player games way more than any other game types. 74% of the 55+ group said playing solo against the computer was their favourite gameplay type, compared to just 3% for playing online in a big team (and 7% in small teams).

Read the rest of the summary here: Older gamers are a growth opportunity for AA(A) publishers – here is how to capture it (midiaresearch.com). (And that’ll be all the detail you get as the cost of the full report is £3,000.00 excl. VAT. Hopefully your favourite developers and publishers spring the cash for the detailed report and use the information to develop games that better suit and serve.)

3 Likes

That’s very interesting. It makes sense though, the guys who were in their teens around the time of the Atari’s are now the golden gamers of today.

1 Like
3 Likes