Rising gaming and social media usage continues to show that
among the next generation of adult media consumers who are middle-aged and older place significantly less emphasis on traditional TV and movie consumption than older media consumers.
“With billions in revenues, the gaming industry shows no signs of slowing down,” says a new Hub Entertainment Research report. “Gaming now rivals film, TV, and music as a
dominant form of entertainment — especially among younger consumers.
Video game users 16-24 years old only give 19% of their weekly time to traditional TV and watching movies in
theaters, compared to 32% who spend time doing console or mobile gaming, and 40% of their time on social media.
Better news for traditional and legacy media providers (TV and movies) comes
from those video game consumers 35 years and older, where 34% watch TV shows or attend movies. With these gamers, 27% of their weekly time is spent gaming and 29% on social media platforms.
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Results are a bit better for old-school media in general among young media consumers when it comes to activities with friends.
For those ages 16-24, 60% are watching TV shows or movies at
home or movies in theaters, while 34% play console or mobile games. For those 35 years and older, while 89% consume TV and movies with friends, while just 17% play console or mobile games.
A
somewhat silver lining for TV and movie producers, distributors and networks is that 55% of gamers play games based on movie, TV, comic book, or toy brand titles and 62% are interested in watching TV
shows and films with those entertainment brand names.
“These trends on gaming are less about games stealing time from TV viewing, and more about how gaming has changed expectations for
how consumers, especially younger ones, prefer to interact with entertainment," said Jason Platt Zolov, senior consultant at Hub and the author of “2025 Gaming 360."
For the “2025
Gaming 360” report, Hub’s research came from interviews with 2,549 U.S. consumers ages 16-74.