August 11th, 2023, Rishad Dsouza
A new multi-market YouGov poll explores the landscape of social media review consumption for a host of products. In this piece we examine the product categories for which gamers watch reviews and how they stack up against the general population.
The poll contains data from 18 global markets, and the gamers sample is made up of consumers who say they have played a video game in the last month.
Interestingly, it is not video games, but tech gadget reviews that gamers are most likely to consume on platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. A third of them (35%) watch social media reviews to inform their decisions on this category compared to only a quarter of the average audience 25%.
Among general audiences, food (28%) reviews claim the top spot, with clothing and shoes (27%) a close second. But due to an increased propensity to use social media and watch reviews in general, gamers comfortably eclipse the general audience even in their favorite categories – food (35%) and clothing/shoes (33%).
For obvious reasons, a striking difference emerges when it comes to video games, where gamers naturally take the lead with a substantial 34% consuming social media reviews – making it the third most popular category of social media product reviews among them. Looking at the overall audience, the share dips to 16% giving the category the eighth place.
Home appliances garner engagement from a quarter of gamers (26%) and a fifth of the overall population. Cars (24% vs 18%) and financial products or services (19% vs 14%) are some of the other categories s where gamers show a strong relative affinity to watch reviews.
There are significant demographic variances in both preferences of product categories watched in social media reviews as well as overall propensity to watch reviews at all. Homing in specifically on gamers, video gaming claims the joint top spot along with food reviews (41% each). Gadgets and electronics take the third spot (39%).
But it is also very interesting to note the preferences of older gamers – specifically those over 55. Firstly, video games are the among the least popular categories of social media reviews within this niche (17% at eighth place). In fact, the preferences of this group align more closely to those of the overall population than the overall gamers’ group.
For creators of video game reviews on social media, it is also worth noting the demographic break up of their target audience. Our data shows that over half of gamers who watch reviews are aged 18-34 (53%). Those aged 35-54 make up 36% of this audience and only 11% are 55 and over. Two thirds of video game review watchers on social media are men (66%) and the remaining third are women (34%).
Diving into the data by market shows varying levels of interests emerge. Gamers in Mexico lead the charge at 55%, followed closely by the UAE at 43%.
In Europe, Spain (36%) leads the way, with Poland (32%) closely behind. Three-tenths of gamers in Britain (28%) also tune into video game reviews, but shares drop to just under a quarter in Italy (23%) and Denmark (23%). The US brings up the bottom of the list with only a fifth of gamers there watching video game reviews on social media (21%).
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Image Credit: Didin Bahana on Unsplash