February 10th, 2023, Rishad Dsouza
Gamers, being a sizeable and generally younger slice of the population, might be a particularly attractive target audience for marketers of various products and services. YouGov Profiles data from five different markets reveal that gamers can significantly differ from non-gamers in attitudes and consumption patterns pertaining to various sectors.
In this piece, we look closer at some of these key behaviors and attitudes across a selection of sectors and topics – from cryptocurrency to sport.
Gamers in this piece refer to those who play video games for at least an hour each week on a PC or on a console.
Gamers and crypto
PC and console gamers are significantly likelier than non-gamers to believe in the potential of cryptocurrencies to become a common medium of transactions. In Australia, four in nine gamers (44%) agree with that statement making them about three times as likely as non-gamers (16%) to do so.
British (28% vs 12%) and American (44% vs 20%) gamers are also over twice as likely to be cryptocurrency believers as their non-gaming counterparts. Substantial differences also emerge between the two groups of consumers in India (53% vs 36%) and UAE (51% vs 30%) as well.
Gamers at the gym
Gamers are also much likelier than non-gamers to frequent the gym, with some of the biggest differences between the two groups again emerging in Australia and the US. Nearly half of Aussie gamers, compared to just over a tenth of non-gamers, say they try to hit the gym as often as possible (45% vs 12%). In the US the figures stand at 42% of gamers and 17% of non-gamers.
In India, three-fifths of gamers say they try to hit the gym frequently (58% vs 33% of non-gamers). In UAE (56% vs 26%) and Britain (30% vs 13%), the gaming cohort are over twice as likely as non-gamers to indicate the same.
Gamers are inseparable from their phones
In an age where GPS apps determine our routes, health tracking apps our diets and social media apps our consumption of news and entertainment, dependency on mobile devices has soared. This is more the case with gamers than non-gamers, although the differences are less pronounced compared to the other attitudes we measure.
Australian gamers are 16 percentage points likelier than non-gamers to agree with the statement “I can't get around without my phone” (65% vs 49%). Fairly substantial differences between the two groups are observed also in the US (56% vs 44%) and UAE (68% vs 58%). Differences, while smaller, are still significant in India (67% vs 60%) and Britain (53% vs 45%).
Are gamers into sports?
One of the factors sometimes cited for the relative decline of the popularity of sports viewership among younger audiences is the distraction provided by other entertainment options. While that might be true of other entertainment options, gaming probably isn’t one of them.
Our data shows gamers are substantially likelier to be fans of football (soccer for the Americans and Australians) than non-gamers. In fact, Australian gamers are nearly three times as likely as non-gamers to say they follow football regularly (28% vs 10%). Even American gamers are over twice as likely as non-gamers to say so (14% vs 6%). Noteworthy differences also show up in Britain (34% vs 27%), India (25% vs 14%), UAE (30% vs 26%).
This data provides a general overview of some key behaviours of gamers, but only scratches the surface of the capabilities of YouGov Profiles. In each market, the tool is able to uncover attitudes and behaviors of gamers (and various other audiences) in other areas and dive deeper into some of the topics mentioned in this article.
For example, in the past we’ve looked at the types of exercise that American and British gamers prefer doing in the gym as well as the link between gaming and sports fan-following.
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Methodology: YouGov Profiles is based on continuously collected data and rolling surveys, rather than from a single limited questionnaire. Profiles data in the US, Britain, UAE, and Australia is nationally representative and weighted by age, gender, education, region, and race. Profiles data in India is representative of an urban sample. Learn more about Profiles.