December 7th, 2022, Kineree Shah
Data breaches on gaming sites have become increasingly common. Last month popular video game retailer GameStop allegedly suffered a data leak after a Reddit user reported that customers were being shown other users’ information when refreshing their order pages. In September video game publisher 2K sent its users an email to warn that some of their personal info was stolen and put up for sale online. Earlier this year, three prominent gaming sites – Roblox, Neopets and Bandai Namco – were hit by data breaches within three weeks of each other. So, are concerns for data privacy widespread among gamers? Consumer opinion varies across markets.
According to YouGov Global Profiles data, American gamers are divided over privacy on the internet. Two-fifths (44%) of gamers say they don't worry about their privacy when using the internet, but 47% disagree. Compared to the general population, American gamers are less concerned about privacy (44% gamers vs 33% of all adults). However, when protecting personal information on the internet, gamers are more likely than the general public to say they don't know how (48% vs 43%). For this piece, we define gamers as those who play video games for at least an hour weekly on PC or consoles.
In Britain the scenario is flipped. Three in five gamers are concerned about their privacy when using the internet, which is slightly higher than the general population (59% gamers vs 56% all adults). Gamers are also more likely than all adults to say they know how to protect their personal information on the internet (47% vs 44%).
With minor differences, gamers and the general public in the APAC region are likely to share similar privacy concerns. In comparison to 24% of all adults, 27% of APAC gamers say they don't worry about privacy when using the internet. Two in five APAC gamers and the general public say they don't know how to protect their personal information on the internet (38% gamers vs 37% all adults), while marginally more people say they "neither agree or disagree" (39% gamers vs 41% all adults).
Gamers in the MENA region are slightly more likely than the general population to be unconcerned about privacy when using the internet (38% vs 35%). When it comes to protecting personal information on the internet, opinions are almost evenly divided between gamers and the general public. One-third of gamers (32%) believe they know how to protect their personal information on the internet, compared to 29% of the general population.
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Methodology
YouGov Global Profiles is a globally consistent audience dataset with 1000+ questions across 48 markets. The data is based on continuously collected data from adults aged 16+ years in China and 18+ years in other markets. The sample sizes for YouGov Global Profiles will fluctuate over time, however the minimum sample size is always c.1000. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from India and UAE, which use urban representative samples, and China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Philippines, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, which use online representative samples. Learn more about Global Profiles.