Gaming's Next Generation of Customers is Broke, and the Industry Should Be Terrified

There’s a comforting lie you tell yourself when you're racking up student debt to make video games for a living: that there will always be an audience eager to buy what you create. It turns out that lie is unraveling faster than a buggy alpha build. According to new data, my own generation, the supposed future customer base for this entire industry, is too broke to buy video games. This is fine. Everything is fine.

The Numbers Don't Lie, and They're Fucking Brutal

A recent report from The Wall Street Journal is the kind of reading that makes you question your life choices. From January to April, spending on games by people aged 18-to-24 dropped by a soul-crushing 13% from last year. That's the overview. The week-to-week stats are even grimmer, showing a cut of nearly 25% in what young zoomers spend on gaming.

And before some boomer exec blames it on a "market-wide trend," the data for every other age group shows a tiny, insignificant dip. No, this is a "us" problem. We are the ones with empty(ier) pockets, and gaming is the first luxury to get tossed on the bonfire of our financial despair.

Rent Comes First, Games Come... Never

What’s the cause? Take a wild guess. The report cites a fun cocktail of a garbage job market, student loans that feel like a life sentence, and crippling credit card debt. It's a special kind of cosmic joke to be studying your ass off to enter an industry whose target audience is simultaneously being financially kneecapped by the very same system. We're being told to chase our dreams while the potential customers for those dreams are being forced to sell their plasma to make rent.

So Much for the Future

This is where the existential dread really kicks in for people like me. Analyst Mat Piscatella said it perfectly: "The rug’s not just being pulled out from under young people, it’s being burned while they’re still standing on it." The industry has always counted on young adults with few responsibilities to be its cash cows. That assumption is now officially dead.

If my generation can't afford to buy games now, we sure as shit won't be able to later. As millennials get older and start spending their money on sensible things, who's supposed to take their place? Us? The generation that considers an unexpected $70 expense a financial catastrophe?

So yeah, forgive me if I'm a little cynical. It’s a hell of a feeling to be training for a career in an industry whose primary customers might soon be priced out of existence. Guess I'll just keep learning how to model assets for games my friends and I will never be able to afford.