February 10th, 2023, Kineree Shah
The issue of inflation and increasing prices has become widespread globally, affecting nearly every market. With the cost of hardware and software on the rise, several prominent gaming companies including Ubisoft, Take-Two, Xbox and Sony have publicly announced plans to raise the prices of their games. Other major game publishers, including Activision Blizzard, EA, Square Enix, and Warner Bros, have also followed suit, resulting in higher prices for popular titles such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, Final Fantasy 16, and Gotham Knights. But are consumers price-conscious about video games?
According to a YouGov poll conducted across 18 international markets, globally, consumers are least likely to be price conscious about video games (9%) in comparison to the rest of the products and services we provided as options.
In terms of age, the highest percentage of price- conscious consumers are in the 18-24 (17%) and 25-34 age groups (14%). The percentage of price-conscious consumers decreases with age, with the 35-44 (11%), 45-54 (9%) and 55+ age groups (3%) showing the least price sensitivity.
Male consumers have a higher level of price- consciousness (12%) compared to females (7%).
The data on consumer sensitivity to video game prices shows a wide range of differences between markets. In Europe, the highest percentage of price-conscious consumers for video games are from Spain (11%). In contrast, Britain (6%), Sweden (5%), and Denmark (3%) has the lowest percentage of price- conscious consumers.
In North America, both the United States (8%) and Canada (9%) have relatively similar levels of price conscious consumers when it comes to this category. However, Mexico is a different story. Here nearly a fifth of consumers are sensitive to the price of video games – the most across all the markets surveyed.
In Asia, China (17%) has a higher percentage of price- conscious consumers compared to other Asian countries. India (14%) and the UAE (14%) are not too far behind. In contrast, Hong Kong (10%) and Singapore (10%) have relatively lower levels of price conscious consumers. In general, Asian markets have a higher percentage of price- conscious consumers when it comes to video games compared to their counterparts in Europe and North America.
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Methodology
YouGov Surveys: Serviced provide quick survey results from nationally representative or targeted audiences in multiple markets. The data is based on surveys of adults aged 18+ years in 18 markets with sample sizes varying between 510 and 2044 for each market. All surveys were conducted online in December 2022. Data from each market uses a nationally representative sample apart from Mexico and India, which use urban representative samples, and Indonesia and Hong Kong, which use online representative samples. Learn more about YouGov Surveys: Serviced.