Adoption Within Older Gamers
One of the most cited knocks to gaming is the “age cliff,” but according to a recent GWI report, that cliff is overstated. Gamers aged between 55-64 experienced the largest growth per age segment since 2018, with a 32% growth over the past three years. Aging gamers are one of the more bullish signals for the future of gaming as it continues to infiltrate the entire global population.
The GWI report lays out some really interesting stats (n=19,000) but here are the three that caught my attention:
- Gamers aged between 55-64 has risen by 32% since 2018
- Gaming has seen notable increases among grandparents and parents of 3+ children, indicating growth of gaming as a “family time” activity
- Parents who live with their children are 24% more likely than the average gamer to own two or more games consoles
Gaming can offer another outlet for families that will not only engage family members in a new way, but also usher in new gamers. Family time is traditionally subjected to things like dinner, watching movies, or sometimes board games. Video gaming is more engaging than watching TV and helps foster relationships. Board games are the current closest comparative, but the learning curve can be high for new board games which often causes families to default to other activities.
We believe that we will start to see a genre form around this phenomenon for games that are meant to be played as an older gamer or with your family. Right now this most closely falls into “casual gaming” but an entirely new market focused on accessibility for older generations will likely mature with games that are fun and easy to play. A company that we believe has a great opportunity to go after this space is Nintendo. The Nintendo Switch offers a portfolio of more casual games and has one of the easier-to-use controllers with a focus on multiplayer functionality.
What we are most excited about in this space is that this clearly shows the audience in gaming is growing quickly and expanding outside of the common demographics. Accessibility to games has grown and this is pushing out the perceived age cliff to a high spending demographic that will help accelerate the gaming TAM. Today, the public market valuation of video gaming companies is $2.1 trillion. This is 2.4% of the ~$87 trillion in global GDP. Older gamers will be a key part of expanding gaming's percentage of global GDP over the next decade.
