The battle between the Video Game and Movie industry continues on, driven by Generation Z's preference for video games over movies. According to a 2024 report by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a staggering 63% of Gen Z individuals prefer playing video games to watching films (compared
I’m not sure it can just be that though, millennials have experience of all three too, why does the trend apparently exclude them?
I will sometimes pick a game, sometimes a movie, sometimes a book—all can be equally engaging IMO
Took way too long to find it in the actual report (page 12 of https://www.theesa.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Essential-Facts-2024-FINAL.pdf)) but it is 63% Gen Z, 55% Millenials, 33% GenX, and 14% Boomers. Nothing is being “excluded”.
And the trend makes sense. GenX and older Millenials were the tipping point where games went from “for losers” to “for everyone”. But also? GenX and Millenials have families and careers. Playing a game gets a lot more difficult when you have kids swarming around whereas putting on a movie is something the whole family can enjoy. Same with just not wanting to touch a computer “of any form” (and ignoring that your streaming box is also a computer…) after a long day of work.
Gaming was more popular and more accessible when Gen Z was growing up, so probably more of them developed a preference for it.
The article doesn’t mention Millennials at all, but the video game market jumped over the box office before Gen Z was old enough to play games.