A newly released joint report from marketing, media, and data firm Comscore and in-game advertiser Anzu found that in 2023, 82% of US gamers made in-game purchases in a "freemium" game of some kind, per Games Industry's read of the paywalled report.
If you'd asked me what this figure would've been, as someone who's been writing about games for over 10 years, I would've guessed it'd be pretty high, but 82% beats even my expectations. There are more, arguably more interesting stats in the report, and this sort of data can only yield a vertical slice of a much larger market. But these aren't throwaway findings, and this US figure speaks to the meteoric rise and enduring popularity of long-tail monetization in games, even as MTX fatigue continually and understandably drives many people to chant, "Vote with your wallet." People have been voting with their wallets; that's how we got here.
A few recent microtransaction touchstones come to mind. Just this month, Nexon's new looter shooter The First Descendant buckled under an influx of new players. This was more than your average launch day server crunch, however: people were buying so many microtransactions that the servers couldn't keep up.
- Two of the most loyal MMO communities grab pitchforks and cancel subscriptions after RuneScape survey mentions paying $350 a year, in-game ads, and paid player support
- "Action RPGs kind of outsell classic RPGs": Fallout OG Tim Cain says AAA RPGs default to violence because it sells, so support non-violent options when you get 'em
In February, as Bandai Namco pushed new paid items to Tekken 8, 30-year Teken veteran Katsuhiro Harada weighed in on the ever-increasing popularity of in-game purchases as a way to keep games in the black long-term.
"Development costs are now 10 times more expensive than in the 90's and more than double or nearly triple the cost of Tekken 7," Harada reasoned. "Even the Fight Lounge servers are costly to maintain. In the past there weren't so many specs and there wasn't online. Plus they didn't have such high resolution and high definition. Now, so many people want the game to run and be supported for a long time. It costs money to continually update the game for that reason."
Also in February, Johan Pilestedt, creative director on Helldivers 2, argued that games "have to earn the right to monetize," which is why Arrowhead's live service hit has avoided pay-to-win unlocks and made it easy to acquire Warbonds just by saving currency earned through normal play. This reflects what usually becomes the sticking point with MTX: if and how these purchases take away from the experience, typically by slowing or walling off content perceived to be essential. "If people want to support this title, they have an option, but we are never forcing anyone to do so," Pilestedt added.
Plenty of people very clearly aren't bothered by these purchases, and it does feel like the broader conversation around MTX, barring extreme and intrusive examples, has reached a point of tolerance. Most seem to agree that it isn't inherently bad to spend a reasonable amount of money on things you enjoy, especially when you're funding art that you've accessed for free, nor is it unreasonable for developers to try new ways of keeping the lights on. (For the record, I'm in that 82%: I spend $5 a month on Genshin Impact, a free game I've enjoyed for almost four years.)
Comscore and Anzu's report also digs into more general gaming demographics, finding that 62% of adults over 18 play games in some capacity, with 49% of that group being millennials and 13% being Gen Z. Among these gamers, 77% said they're multiplatform, with "over a third," in Games Industry's words, playing a mix of console, PC, and mobile.
