63% of Gen Z Would Rather Play Video Games Than Watch a Movie
63% of Gen Z Would Rather Play Video Games Than Watch a Movie
The battle between the Video Game and Movie industry continues on, driven by Generation Z's preference for video games over movies. According to a 2024 report by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a staggering 63% of Gen Z individuals prefer playing video games to watching films (compared
The value proposition is just heavily skewed towards video games. Some games cost less than a single visit to the cinema and provide heaps more entertainment. Sure, it's different entertainment and the social aspect of going to the cinema is a factor too, but I'm not much into cinemas myself, so I know where my money goes.
74The social aspect of going into a dark room to watch a screen in silence? Vs talking a joking around on voice chat?
39The social aspect of going to watch a movie in a dark room on a screen while everyone around me loudly "whispers" to each other and checks their phones. Not to mention the screen that is lower quality than my television at home.
7If you put it that way
3
Add into it that a game can offer much of the same as a movie and given that it's an interactive experience, you're not just cheering on the hero, you are the hero.
And the social experience was risky before, but with smartphones being so prevalent, it has skewed the chances heavily towards a negative experience.
16Social aspect of games is way bigger than movies. You don't even talk during a movie.
10You don't watch a military movie and trash talk movie goers, threaten to bang their mom and then do a teabag motion when someone dies?
9
I’m 40 and I’d rather play a video game than watch a movie.
32I'm 50 and really don't watch movies almost at all any more. They tend to be so formulaic and too long to watch at home at night. If I'm going to watch something it will likely be episodic tv series. I do still play video games on the regular though.
2
For those that are curious, here's the exact questions used and the %s by demographic
Generally speaking I'd also fall into the rather play games category, but it really depends on the context. Unfortunately there aren't too many couch co-op kind of games anymore so if the goal is to spend time with someone playing a video game doesn't often work great.
24If you are interested, this is my Couch Coop To Do List for me and my wife (sorry for bad formatting):
A Way Out Asterix & Obelix XXXL: The Ram From Hibernia Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! BattleBlock Theater Biped Bravery and Greed Bread & Fred Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake Castle Crashers Cat Quest II Chariot Conduct Together! Contra: Operation Galuga Cuphead Darksiders Genesis Death Squared Degrees of Separation Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition Divinity: Original Sin II Dungeon Defenders Dungeon Golf Earth Defense Force 5 Ember Knights Escape Academy Escape Simulator Fly TOGETHER! For The King For The King II Forced From Space Fueled Up Gauntlet Golf With Your Friends Grave Danger Hammerwatch Heroes of Hammerwatch Huntdown Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes KeyWe Knights and Bikes Kukoos: Lost Pets LEGO 2K Drive LEGO City Undercover LEGO Horizon Adventures Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris Lost Castle Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime Magicka 2 Mekazoo Metal Slug Monaco 2 Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine Moving Out Nine Parchments Nobody Saves the World Operation: Tango Outward PHOGS! Pizza Possum Pocky & Rocky Reshrined Pode Portal 2 Rayman Legends River Tails: Stronger Together Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos Rooms of Realities Rotwood Sackboy: A Big Adventure Shift Happens Sonic Superstars Spelunky Starbound Struggling Surmount Team Sonic Racing The Adventure Pals The Expanse: A Telltale Series The Plucky Squire The Swords of Ditto Tick Tock: A Tale for Two Tipston Salvage Tools Up! Towerborne Trine 2 Unrailed! Unravel Two Unruly Heroes Untitled Goose Game Voyage We Were Here Together Who's Your Daddy Wizard of Legend II ibb & obb
3Absolutely, thank you!
1
I think the first stat in the graph is the most important one and really speaks to the reason for the last one. I said this is another post about this article, but video games have become their own kind of third space. Going out with friends has become so expensive, whether you're going to a movie or something else, and in a lot of places you can't go to hang out without having to spend money anyways, so video games have become a replacement way to hang out with friends. And that's before you start talking about stuff like friends who moved across the country for work or something.
10Yes, definitely. My kids play a lot of fortnite because that's how they talk to their friends after school. Some of my friends I only talk to while gaming because we don't live near each other.
5
My wife, kids and I play video games together by sharing the controller.
We were playing classic SNES games together. Like playing Super Mario World or Super Metroid. My youngest isn't really good at bosses so he hands it off to his older siblings. Where my wife likes to draw various scenes from the game so we can color them later.
It started during the pandemic but we do it once a month now and it's been a great family bonding experience.
4
Video games as a narrative vehicle have come a long way.
Go try 'Detroit: Become Human' or 'Man of Medan' or 'Baldur's Gate 3'. The stories in gaming are GD amazing.
12I'm an old millennial and Ive usually preferred games to movies.
I think one reason it's hard for me to watch movies (or even books) is having no control over the narrative. Writing in a lot of TV/movies are just too, well, stupid. Even if a game is bad, you can at least have fun with cheats/mods or having your own objectives. Movies/TV your stuck with their plot as a bystander to a story.
28Writing in a lot of TV/movies are just too, well, stupid
Personally i find the quality bar for writing in games (especially AAA games) is much lower. A well-known game with writing that matches a mid-tier movie usually gets heralded as GOTY. I agree with your point about emergent stories, though.
8Basically the same reason as my reply to above reply. But in short, you're right. AAA games basically = trash now (rare exceptions probably).
3
Old millennial here, too. For me it's that video games have gotten too exhausting for me. Simply consuming, without decisions, is what I prefer after a workday 😴
3Oh I'm not playing new games anymore. WoW burned me of that years ago (shadowlands refugee). I'm playing single player/local co-op stuff only. Bg3, modded Minecraft/sims 4/cyberpunk etc.
2
Only 63%?
14The story lasts longer. And there’s no commercials. Why not?
I say that as an old person.
16Battle and season passes and events can often be classified as ads. (Mainly "live service" games.)
Progression systems and gambling systems are a thing in games but not movies. Often taking away from inherent qualities and intrinsic motivation.
1I wish all games were free of commercials...
4
I can't help but feel that part of this is because to make a movie there's a higher barrier to entry and so a lot of studios and big budget production companies keep doing the 'safe' thing and regurgitating already existing properties or keeping their storylines 'safe'.
This happens in gaming too (especially with big budget franchises) but there are really great experiments and indies out there showing what can be done, which is less so in the movie and TV industry.
People don't always want the same thing over and over again and if executives could ever learn this it would be amazing how much creativity there would be, but they don't.
15I don’t think it is so much that executives cannot learn, it’s more that their priorities are consistent predictable margins, not the overall health of the industry.
It’s a prisoner’s dilemma, most of the benefit of succeeding with something original is for the industry as a whole; proving certain concepts and ideas are viable, revitalizing public interest in the medium, ect. But the risks are mainly carried by a single publisher or studio, if it flops, they loose money.
So the general trend is to avoid risk and maximize predictable profit, this shrinks the over all profitability of the industry by fatiguing public interest and willingness to pay, but maximizes safety for individual publishers and studios.
Having a low budget segment that can afford to take risk on new ideas is key to preventing industry decline, but the industry has moved away from that towards the highest possible revenue generating films. The publishers and studios that used to do that have all ether folded or moved up to bigger budget higher return options, and they’ve pulled up the ladder behind them by making it so difficult to get indie projects in to theaters.
The same thing could happen in the video game industry. Luckily the indie game market exists, and they’re still able to get their products distributed on large platforms like consoles if they prove a big enough hit on the PC market. It is getting harder though, and more and more, small budget, small team games are getting relegated to PC where there is just a smaller market. Ideally, consoles should make it easier to get small indie games onto their platform, or more people should start playing on PCs.
1That's kinda' how Rockstar Games started, apparently. Strauss Zelnik (spelling...?) suggested the Houser brothers to enter the gaming market because movie and music markets were too saturated and had success rates too low. Gaming was new at the time.
All of this comes from some YouTube video. Will edit in a YouTube/Invidious link to it here, sometime...
3Ooo, interesting.
Thank you, looking forward to it!
1
The movie Everything Everywhere All at Once really brought a tear to my eye. It ignored a lot of "safe" conventions and just went all in on making a really good film.
2Yes! I loved it, and same about tears.
2
For me, the turnoff with movies specifically is the hard time commitment. It's rare that I have 2-3 hours free uninterrupted, and even if I do, I'm more drawn to the activity that I could put down after an hour if I really wanted to. Also, I'm usually picking up a game or TV show that I've already started, so I'm jumping into a story that I'm already invested in, rather than starting a whole new one.
12For me these days, movies are way easier to jump into than a new series. Way less of a time commitment.
2I am bottom Shrek.
10
The movie industry is killing movie piracy, as the age old saying goes
6well yeah, deep rock galactic is a video game, not a movie
duh
7Rock and stone!
5For karl!!
1
I would not want to play video games with the people in the image, if they can't hold a controller with their fingers on the triggers/shoulder buttons...
8Haha, that's crazy. My boomer dad may play Halo as a cover-shooter, but he can at least hold the controller properly. :P
2I'm also going to need some elbow room in case I need to dodge anything.
3
Now ask about tiktok vs games and about gacha mmos vs other games 😅
4