Oh gee! I wonder why is this happening?!

I guess we'll never know!

Anyway, let's release another copy-paste game at 90€/$ with 50€/$ in dlcs and another collector edition with some plastic toy for 300!

Not just Gen Z lol. People don't have money, games are a luxury, luxuries are the first to go when you need to stretch your cash. Not that complicated.

Less money to buy games, cost of games go up, quality still crap, riddled with micro transactions. Why buy a game when it comes out when you can wait to buy it on a sale while you play your backlog and by the time you buy the game it will be the best version because they had time to fix it up, almost never to the degree it should be but still the best it's going to get

1. Do they have money? I don't have money.

2. Modern games from major devs fucking suck.

They're spending their time scrolling. The GenZ equivalent of television. GenZ is also getting older. The median age is over college graduate age. They're simply working more or doing other things besides video games. Not everyone is a Paradox gamer. I'm sure the GenZ Paradox gamers, PC gamers, and FPS/sports enthusiasts are all still buying the same games. But the people growing out of it might buy 1-2 per year and play ~10 hrs per month. The "youngest GenZ" is about 13 years old now.

From my perspective as a millennial, people are running out of time and energy too.

Like, I know a couple, both working, no kids, avid and techy gamers who know to play stuff like KCDII, yet they mostly plop down for YouTube at the end of the day. A VG or longer form TV is too draining, and too long.

I also didn't really buy many games until I had proper salary. 🤷🏻‍♂️ Some of gen-Z are still pretty young and they are just poor students...

Why buy a new game when you have no money and your backlog will take years to go through?

Could it be that the economy fucking sucks?

Nope, clearly it's our fault for not just going out and buying stuff.

Modern games fucking suck. Start making good shit if you want people to buy them.

Also fuck the useless malware anticheats. Do it server side if you want to be even mildly effective or fuck off.

Y'all, this market is beyond saturated. And the AI gaming people are flOOOoding the space with more and more stuff.

In terms of a fun way to spend an hour or two, or a few go-to games, there's unlimited options, many free or free enough. Meanwhile, everyone churning out titles expects full attention and wishlist and dropping $50 on them for simply existing.

Well, gee, I wonder why. Not like their money isn't going more for necessities after all

The whole world is cutting back on everything everywhere as no one wants to be left short if this global economic craziness gets even more out of hand.

and indie games are cheaper and better

Like others said, it's not just Gen-Z.

Funny enough, the main reason I'm spending far less is not the shitty economy, but rather the gaming industry's push to kill physical copies.

I used to buy a lot of physical games at full price because they would be much harder to find later on, but if I'm forced to go with a digital copy this is no longer an issue, so I just let them sit on my wishlist until they're massively discounted.

They don’t come out with original work that gets people interested and/or they enshittify the franchise. If GreatGame was good, we’re on GreatGame VI with microtransactions, paid skins, fortnite play, no immersive single player campaign, and ads with no real change to anything else.

Did industry try to raise prices even more? Maybe higher prices is what's missing for gaming industry to blossom /s

Yeah, I remember being in my 20s too. Too bad they are going through the same shit we did. are we getting another "this is a trauma response" generation?

Everyone is.

I don't buy new releases anymore.

Why?

Cause the prices are getting stupid. Cause its all digital downloads with no physical product. Cause my "ownership" can be revoked at any time by the platforms whims or the platforms shutdown.

What happened to digital downloads being cheaper, anyway? Thats the promise we were sold 10+ years ago. That by sacrificing physical products, Publishers/Devs wouldnt have to pay for printing, manufacturing, shipping, storage, etc, so they'd be able to sell AAA new releases for 30 dollars, and Pub/Dev would still make more money.

And now we're supposed to be paying 60, 70, 80 dollars or more, for these digital download games.. that we don't even own? And because they have no product on the shelves, prices never come down either. Sure, you might find a sale like on steam or something.. but those sales pale in comparison to what they were 5, 10 years ago

Fuck that. Amazing how the only promise fulfilled on moving to digital download was that pubs/devs would get more money.. and they get that by skyrocketing the costs, not because of the sacrifices we made to give up boxes, disks, manuals, and ownership

My son stopped playing some of the latest stuff because of the crazy levels of anti cheating intrusionware. Better mental health not playing competitive multiplayer too.

Gen X, can't actually remember the last time I bought a game.

Suikoden 1 & 2 on PS5? I think that was it.

I used to buy games all the time, but I won't pay for a digital release I don't own. Avowed? Digital only. Looked for Expedition 33, couldn't find it on physical.

I'm not leaving gaming, gaming is leaving me.

Maybe on bad triple A games

Steam's indie games tho, gen Z are spending a shit ton there

As a old member of Gen Z, i can definitely say the prices aren't helping. A lot of people in my age group just don't work from what i've seen, so with 70$ and sometime 80$ games they aren't going to be buying many. On top of that, and this may just be the people i've exposed myself too, but most of them don't want longer experiences. They'd rather plop down with something like FF14 or Mario Kart and play that over and over and over again. That's not a bad thing, but i definitely think it's not helping. And like i said, this might just be the people i expose myself too.

Why buy new when I have a backlog, the PS1/2 catalog emulated, and can wait 6+ months for a sale

Then who is? Millions of people are gonna buy the new Call of Duty on release. Who are they?

I do buy games from time to time, but 2 of my most played games on Steam are just free games. OpenTTD and vivid/stasis.

even milleneals arnt paying it, like myself. not paying for things like switch, or swsh, because they decided to enshittify the console or games, and gouge prices.

I keep buying games on sale but I'm just not playing much of my backlog.

I keep going back to a few strategy games and putting even more hours in. The vast majority of my gaming in the past 2 years has been between 3 games.

Ultimate Admiral Dreadnought - Janky, and I have problems with how HE shells are handled in the main mod I play, keep booting it up. 850 hours played.

Star Wars Empire At War. So many amazing mods.

Wartales - game gets stale after a while but it's good enough that after a bit I go back to it to put even more hours in.

I have so many amazing games that when I do play them I love them, but I keep going back to these strategy games. Oh, and a bunch of time on Need For Speed Heat.

I've been spending a bunch on other games, but I'm just not playing them.