The demand for more extensive creative capabilities, such as creating mini games within larger platforms, is significantly lower. While players show a strong desire for control over basic user-generated content (UGC), such as customizing their appearance and making simple mods, there are limits to that interest. Not all models are a guaranteed home run. Younger gamers are also more likely to play online games to compete with friends, family, and strangers, compared with adult gamers who tend to play for fun and are more likely to play solo (see Figure 6). Developers and publishers that get this right through experimentation and listening to gamer feedback should benefit from higher engagement among Gen Z, which includes the 13-to-17 age group. Our survey found that 56% of younger gamers said they were comfortable paying to unlock features that improve their performance, while more older players were not. Within free-to-play models, there has been some backlash against features that let gamers pay for better performance, such as buying special capabilities or a more powerful weapon. This trend is likely to accelerate as video games become the foundation for other paid entertainment experiences. The rise of new payment models like monthly subscriptions to game libraries (such as Xbox Game Pass and Apple Arcade) along with the global dominance of free-to-play games have improved average revenue per user (ARPUs). This evolving preference bodes well for growth of the gaming industry. And half of younger gamers who don’t play online games at all say they’re interested in metaverse technology. Even younger gamers who haven’t played in the metaverse say they’ll probably do so in the future. They’re also more likely to believe that they’ll spend more time in the future with metaverse games, by which we mean persistent and immersive virtual environments that overlap with the physical world, where players go not just for the game, but also to socialize, create things, and sometimes even attend events (see Figure 1). Younger gamers in particular, those from 13 to 17 years of age, have adopted metaverse-style games quicker and tend to be more interested in them than players a few years older (18 to 34). But one large group of consumers has been comfortable spending a lot of time in virtual worlds for years: gamers. There’s been a fair amount of buzz over the advent of the metaverse over the past year or two, and more than a few observers have taken a gimlet eye to the bold claims about life and commerce shifting so far into the digital realm.
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