Statistics indicate that gamers in the U.S. currently buy only two new games a year, writes Shazoo.
In 2024, over 18,000 new titles were added to Steam. The list of notable releases for just this October reached 55 games. One might assume that with such a flood of the market, the average gamer is actively purchasing new releases. The reality turned out to be quite different – a new study by Circana revealed that most players (in the U.S.) buy only two games a year or fewer.
The data was published last week by Matt Piscatella, head of gaming research at the company. The Future of Games report for the last quarter included a question about how often respondents purchase new games. A full third of participants stated that they do not buy even one game a year. Only 4% purchase more than one game a month.
Piscatella presented the data in the context of the recent price increase for Game Pass. While most players hardly buy games, a small group spends huge amounts. Enthusiasts, who are insensitive to prices, do indeed support the industry, especially in the paid games segment. This refers to a group willing to buy every game on the most anticipated list, often in Deluxe Edition.
The trend is confirmed by financial data from gaming companies like Sony. Despite stagnation in the growth of the console base, profits continue to rise within the same audience of fans. Some people buy the Switch 2, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series and acquire only a few games for the device. Others continue to add to their backlog.
The gaming community is often perceived as a homogeneous mass. The median player is represented as the entire audience, although the market is defined by many different groups with unique habits, tastes, and views on the hobby. At the same time, the data explains why studios are so careful about "release windows." If most buy a couple of games a year, it’s better not to release simultaneously with Call of Duty, Madden, or the next Grand Theft Auto.
An obvious solution to the problem is improving curation and recommendation systems. There are too many games only if it is impossible to help the right people find suitable titles. Valve has invested a lot of work into solving this issue, but Steam is still far from perfect. Other platforms have not even come close to the necessary level – smartphones have the worst results in terms of content curation.
Here’s what gamers are saying in the comments:
"It’s worth noting that 2 games a year means 2 new games at full price at release/pre-order. If you look at it this way, I also buy about 2-4 games. Although I can buy around 50 games a year, but that’s during sales, discounts, etc. Since I’m not very interested in some games, I can easily wait until it drops by 75% and buy it just to play and forget... Or buy it and immediately forget about it, that has happened too... But more often, games that don’t interest me much might end up on my wishlist or not, and after a while, they might either be bought or simply removed from the list because I "lost interest." The state of modern releases personally deters me from buying at launch."
"How many games were bought there per year in 2020, 2015, etc.? It may well turn out that it’s one more copy. Moreover, now we are in the era of "free to play," and people spend money there and on mobile games. I think it’s still positive that with the emergence of conditionally free markets and gadgets in everyone’s pockets, the dynamics of purchasing gaming products on consoles and PCs remains at such a level. Plus, everyone has a huge backlog now. Most of the time, you can always choose to play previous installments of a series rather than a new release. The same default Assassin's Creed, you wait a year or two until Shadow costs as much as a cup of coffee and calmly play the other parts. And I’m not talking about playing the first part, which is very outdated, but relatively fresh projects that won’t hurt your eyes graphically and will be palatable in terms of gameplay."
"I mainly buy past hits on Steam during sales, and even then, my collection is growing faster than I can play these games."
"This was also the case about 8 years ago. That’s when Game Pass was just coming out. It seemed to cost $120 back then, which justified it to the maximum. Now that they’ve raised the price, I thought that "people have gotten richer" and on average started buying 4-6 games."
"Well, basically, I have 27 games this year, of which only 2 were full price - Battlefield 6 and Commandos: Origins, the rest were bought during sales for a smaller portion of the cost of those two."
"I’ve been doing this for a long time. I buy 1-2 games at full price and maybe a couple of games on sale or indie. There’s just no time for more."
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