It is not surprising to see the “video game culture” prevalent today. Video games have been feverish since their conception in the early 1950s. The frenzy is still intensifying day by day, more so during the pandemic when people have a few recreational options. The State of Online Gaming 2020 research report states that gamers spend more than six hours each week playing video games.
Over the years, the gaming industry has seen significant changes in its development, catering to gamers’ infinitely growing tastes. The growth has been so exponential, and the outcome so diverse that Wikipedia has a separate page allotted to the range of genres in video games.
The video game industry is amazingly ingenious, with the game developers coming up with unique notions that merge different genres and storylines to create deliciously visual treats. The perspective is essential: you can either play a sole hero, “the chosen one,” in first-person shooter games like Call of Duty. Or you could be a part of a community working cooperatively with others to achieve a common goal in multi-player games like World of Warcraft. Multiplayer video gaming is more flexible since it provides many options for a gamer, namely:
- Working cooperatively with others to find a common goal.
- Playing against other players.
- Or supervising another player’s activity.
Gaming Industry Has Become More Accommodating
However, the diversity goes far beyond the genres, the storylines, or the different combat modes, etc.; video games are also becoming commercially flexible according to different gamers. With the gaming consoles and other gaming devices being so costly, one of the primary goals of game developers is to build mobile-friendly games so more people could access them. The result? Mobile phones are now the most popular devices across every age group of gamers, game developers’ according to a report. This ease in accessing video games added to the general interest in developing free video games like Royal Spins Free Slots has made it possible for almost everyone worldwide to play video games.
The Change Owing to COVID-19
It should come as no surprise that the pandemic has had a remarkable effect on the gaming industry by increasing its potential revenue. Stats show that the global gaming industry is expected to be worth $256.97 billion by 2025, with the video games market being potentially worth over $90 billion by the end of 2020.
The most augmented growth has been seen in the online gambling industry, which is expected to expand from $58.9 billion in 2019 and $66.7 billion in 2020 at a growth rate of 13.2%. This has been possible due to the shutdown of brick and mortar casinos owing to the pandemic and people making up for it by surging towards the online casino markets offering a wide range of free and paid leisure activities.
The Demographics
The demographics of video games have exceptionally changed over the years, with female and elderly players partaking more and more with every passing year. But our question today is about a specific target audience— millionaires— do they, like all of us, play video games?
The staff at Earnest did a study on video game demographics based on anonymized data from tens of thousands of applications for student loan refinancing.
The study concluded that:
- Younger people are more likely to spend money on video games.
- Men are more likely to make video game purchases than women.
- People with high school diplomas or associate degrees are more likely to be potential customers of video games instead of people with higher degrees.
- People earning more than $90k are less likely to spend on games than their low-earning counterparts.
- People tend to become less interested in video games as more time passes since their graduation.
One of the key points the study showed is that salary doesn’t make a big difference in video gaming. However, there is a small but significant decrease in video gaming in applicants who make more than $90,000 per year, where the share of video gamers begins to drop off from 12% to 9%.
As of 2020, the average salary of millionaires is $77,916 per year, bringing us to the point that yes, millionaires play video games, with their numbers declining the more their salary is. Although, this study isn’t representative of the national picture and only depicts the subset of people with student loans on which this research was conducted.
One of the prominent points that led to this conclusion was that those with more advanced degrees had higher incomes, but this isn’t always the case because many billionaires did not have a college education.
This study focused on a small group; thus, it can’t be the source of statistics of millionaires playing video games.
The studies done on this subject have been sparse and more representative of a small population, so we cannot generalize. However, there has been a study that concludes that 22.36 percent of respondents with high income participated in video games in 2018.
But these studies are not enough to form a definite opinion about this matter. There are, however, instances when many wealthy and affluent people have professed themselves that they are avid video gamers. We’re going to mention some of them.
Famous Millionaires/Billionaires Who Play Video Games
Mark Zuckerberg
Mark Zuckerberg is probably the most famous video game buff who is also a billionaire. He has been enthusiastic about video games since he was a kid and attributes his love of programming to video games and encourages people to let their kids play video games. The CEO of Facebook recently revealed that he liked strategy games, his favorite being Sid Meier’s Civilization.
Steven Spielberg
The American movie director who blessed us with E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and Jaws is a big fan of video games too. He has shown particular interest in shooting games like Rainbow Six Siege and the Medal of Honor series. As well as being an avid player, he has also helped in creating video games.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk, the billionaire, known famously for being the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, is a video game enthusiast. Say what you want to say about that man; you can’t rob him of his genuine love for video games. Musk has an eclectic taste in video games. He has stated that he loves the game franchises produced by Bethesda. His favorite games are Bioshock, Warcraft, and Overwatch. The list of games he has proclaimed his love for was big enough for Business Insider to write a whole article on it.
Larry Page
Larry Page, famously known as the co-founder of Google, is also Elon Musk’s gaming buddy. His favorite games are shooter games, specifically Overwatch.
Mila Kunis
The famous Black Swan actress with a net worth of about 66 million dollars has candidly admitted to being obsessed with World of Warcraft.
Jack Black
The American actor and comedian are worth an estimated $30 million to $50 million, as of 2020. He has managed to openly profess his love for video games by voicing the main character in an action game called Brutal Legend. The actor is proud to beat Project Gotham Racing. He also has a YouTube channel designated for gaming.
Conclusion
The number of studies done on this topic is not sufficient for us to conclude. However, based on what we’ve discussed so far, it is safe to say that video gaming is becoming famous with all groups of people coming from all ages and financial backgrounds.
