Appetite, Loyalty & Age
A Cross Generational view of player behaviour [2024-2025]
Different by demographic
Game exploration and loyalty show up in different ways depending on the age cohort.
For this exercise, I’ve grouped Gen Z & Alpha, Millennial and Gen X into 3 categories.
Gen Z & Alpha
Hungry for Novelty, but remain deeply loyal to 1-2 social focused titles & platforms.
Millennials
Balance novelty with commitment. Craves novelty but anchors to familiar genres & franchises.
Gen X
Craves novelty within limited, well loved genres. Loyalty driven by mastery, routine, convenience, nostalgia.
Driving loyalty
It’s almost certainly not about age; it’s about
Identity
Community
Social proof
Convenience
Time investment
Life circumstances.
Behaviour Models by generation
Gen Z & Alpha Ages 8–24 ish
Frequent explorers, anchored to core social games based on UGC and Social or community emphasis.
Roblox
380M+ MAU, 88.9M DAU
60% of users [61M] over age 13; DAU aged 13+
Average session time 2.4 hours/day
Fortnite
60M DAU, 110M+ MAU,
650M registered users
63% of users aged 18–24
Core game status reinforced by social heavy mechanics like events, customization, social proof and the explosion of streaming culture.
Millennials Ages 25 - 40 ish
Represent 35–40% of all gamers globally.
Balance depth & novelty.
Frequently rotate games based on quality, nostalgia, brand trust, time efficiency.
Millennials most likely to balance familiar favorites with early adopter vibe for novelty.
Common behaviors
Stick within trusted genres they have mastered and love. Think RPGs, FPSs, RTSs, Narrative heavy etc
More likely to Rotate 2 to 4 titles across platforms: mobile, PC, console, handheld etc.
Loyalty often driven by studio reputation, depth or straight up nostalgia.
Gen X Ages 41 - 55 ish.
14–18% of gamers [U.S. and Canada].
Explorational but less varied experimentation.
Often stick with few known titles or preferred genres.
Based in familiarity, ease of use, genre comfort, replayability.
Limited exploration but love novelty, favoring casual, long-form single-player games or mobile, with 1 Multiplayer community heavy “anchor” title.
Retention usually driven by Mastering known/familiar gameplay mechanics More emphasis on Narrative, PVE, Cooperation.
Novelty is extremely important but low friction and convenience win out. Think purchasing, matchmaking, onboarding, drop-in drop-out etc.
Very loyal to genre IPs that are loved and likely to explore within those genres.
Strategic takeaways
Gen Z & Alpha
Younger players explore widely but build strong habits around social ecosystems.
Millennials
Ideal targets for premium experiences, franchise loyalty, or genre innovation.
Gen X
values convenience and consistency. UX friction or over-complexity will push them away.
Demographic separation
If you're designing for multiple demographics, you need to think beyond designing for different platforms alone. You’re building for completely different usership personas, life circumstances and attention deficits.
The old “I make games I want to play” mantra simply wont scale in AAA. If you’re building games, then Novelty is your friend!!!
Competing for attention
You will never compete with Call of Duty by doing more of what they already do. A lesson X-Defiant learned the hard way, and hopefully many other potential followers took note. There are deep personal and social [intrinsic & extrinsic] ties between the genre incumbents, and their players.
We see further proof in the performance of Mindseye; a little too much GTA to compete with GTA.
The bond between player and platform or game mimic the bonds of a relationship; both being shaped over time by the other.
There’s good news however; the best way to compete is through novelty.
All demographics show a hunger for novelty.
Their anchor game relationships aren’t going anywhere, save some catastrophic change in status quo. However, players of all demographics venture out seeking new experiences, or similar experiences told well with an interesting twist. Genre combinations also show potential here with Blue Prince (first person puzzles), The Alters (4 genres mashed together), Balatro (a novel card battler), Clair Obscur 33 (a novel story, turn based, open world) as examples of very notable successes.
Psychographic Segmentation
Tools like Quantic Foundry’s Gamer Motivation Model show that exploration and loyalty are less about age, more about player TYPE, sort of.
This suggests that loyalty is fragile… anchoring behavior exists, but it’s not to the exclusion of all else. It may be a function of social synchronization, not emotional commitment.
Demographics alone may be too blunt an instrument.
Player psychology, personality & context might predict behavior better than age alone.
However, demographic behaviour is extremely helpful to determine the motivations for adopting new games and interestingly, the generational correlation matches a great deal of the time.
While age is not a predictor, it certainly helps segment and identify unifying behaviours across those generations.
Wrap up
The best chance we have for success is to do something original. Original can mean a new IP, or a novel way of looking at an existing genre. Or even combining a few.
Games and their players for deep bonds over time and inform the growth of each other. Like an actual relationship. While occasional distractions can happen, they seldom replace that anchor title that feels like “home”.
Trying to compete with those incumbent titles to become the new “home“ title will almost always fail. Reaching the same level of reputation, mastery and contribution would require a veteran player to start from scratch and invest their non-renewable resources with no guarantees of the same satisfaction.
Soooooooo my advice is:
Stop trying to be the NEXT.
Get busy being the FIRST!
Players will love you for it.
Your team will love you for it. You only get so many swings at this. Its time we pressure studio leaders to also have more imagination so we can have a fighting chance at competing in this crowded market.
Ok that was a lot. I need a nap!
References
Roblox Corp. quarterly investor reports (2024–2025); Takeaway Reality; Techpoint Africa
Epic Games player base insights; Statista and PlayerCounter (Fortnite)
ESA 2024 Industry Report; Pew Research Center on generational gaming trends
Quantic Foundry: Player segmentation studies by age and motivation
AARP Gaming Reports (50+ demographics); Newzoo 2024 Player Behavior Analysis
Sources
Ahn, T. and Bostan, B. (2022) ‘Shifting Communities: Group Identity, Fandom, and Transient Loyalty in Digital Play’, Games and Culture, 17(5), pp. 623–639. DOI: 10.1177/1555412022108912.
Data.ai (2023) State of Mobile Gaming 2023. Available at: https://www.data.ai/en/go/state-of-mobile-2023/ (Accessed: 23 June 2025).
Martin, P. and Consalvo, M. (2023) ‘Games as Media Objects: Episodic Play and the Temporality of Game Engagement’, Proceedings of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA). Available at: http://www.digra.org/digital-library/ (Accessed: 23 June 2025).
Newzoo (2024) Global Games Market Report. Available at: https://newzoo.com/insights/trend-reports/global-games-market-report-2024 (Accessed: 23 June 2025).
Yee, N. and Ducheneaut, N. (2024) 2024 Gamer Motivation Report. Quantic Foundry. Available at: https://quanticfoundry.com/reports/ (Accessed: 23 June 2025).
