I’m 40 and I’d rather play a video game than watch a movie.
63% of Gen Z Would Rather Play Video Games Than Watch a Movie
Submitted 7 months ago by ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net to gaming@beehaw.org
https://gamerblurb.com/articles/63-of-gen-z-would-rather-play-a-video-game-than-watch-a-movie
Comments
Klanky@sopuli.xyz 7 months ago
realitista@lemm.ee 7 months ago
I’m 50 and really don’t watch movies almost at all any more. They tend to be so formulaic and too long to watch at home at night. If I’m going to watch something it will likely be episodic tv series. I do still play video games on the regular though.
terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
I’m an old millennial and Ive usually preferred games to movies.
I think one reason it’s hard for me to watch movies (or even books) is having no control over the narrative. Writing in a lot of TV/movies are just too, well, stupid. Even if a game is bad, you can at least have fun with cheats/mods or having your own objectives. Movies/TV your stuck with their plot as a bystander to a story.
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Writing in a lot of TV/movies are just too, well, stupid
Personally i find the quality bar for writing in games (especially AAA games) is much lower. A well-known game with writing that matches a mid-tier movie usually gets heralded as GOTY. I agree with your point about emergent stories, though.
terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Basically the same reason as my reply to above reply. But in short, you’re right. AAA games basically = trash now (rare exceptions probably).
sverit@lemmy.ml 7 months ago
Old millennial here, too. For me it’s that video games have gotten too exhausting for me. Simply consuming, without decisions, is what I prefer after a workday 😴
terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Oh I’m not playing new games anymore. WoW burned me of that years ago (shadowlands refugee). I’m playing single player/local co-op stuff only. Bg3, modded Minecraft/sims 4/cyberpunk etc.
Gaywallet@beehaw.org 7 months ago
For those that are curious, here’s the exact questions used and the %s by demographic
Generally speaking I’d also fall into the rather play games category, but it really depends on the context. Unfortunately there aren’t too many couch co-op kind of games anymore so if the goal is to spend time with someone playing a video game doesn’t often work great.
EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 months ago
I think the first stat in the graph is the most important one and really speaks to the reason for the last one. I said this is another post about this article, but video games have become their own kind of third space. Going out with friends has become so expensive, whether you’re going to a movie or something else, and in a lot of places you can’t go to hang out without having to spend money anyways, so video games have become a replacement way to hang out with friends. And that’s before you start talking about stuff like friends who moved across the country for work or something.
__Lost__@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
Yes, definitely. My kids play a lot of fortnite because that’s how they talk to their friends after school. Some of my friends I only talk to while gaming because we don’t live near each other.
ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
My wife, kids and I play video games together by sharing the controller.
We were playing classic SNES games together. Like playing Super Mario World or Super Metroid. My youngest isn’t really good at bosses so he hands it off to his older siblings. Where my wife likes to draw various scenes from the game so we can color them later.
It started during the pandemic but we do it once a month now and it’s been a great family bonding experience.
SyntaxTerror@feddit.org 7 months ago
If you are interested, this is my Couch Coop To Do List for me and my wife:
A Way Out Asterix & Obelix XXXL: The Ram From Hibernia Asterix & Obelix: Slap Them All! BattleBlock Theater Biped Bravery and Greed Bread & Fred Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake Castle Crashers Cat Quest II Chariot Conduct Together! Contra: Operation Galuga Cuphead Darksiders Genesis Death Squared Degrees of Separation Divinity: Original Sin - Enhanced Edition Divinity: Original Sin II Dungeon Defenders Dungeon Golf Earth Defense Force 5 Ember Knights Escape Academy Escape Simulator Fly TOGETHER! For The King For The King II Forced From Space Fueled Up Gauntlet Golf With Your Friends Grave Danger Hammerwatch Heroes of Hammerwatch Huntdown Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes KeyWe Knights and Bikes Kukoos: Lost Pets LEGO 2K Drive LEGO City Undercover LEGO Horizon Adventures Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris Lost Castle Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime Magicka 2 Mekazoo Metal Slug Monaco 2 Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine Moving Out Nine Parchments Nobody Saves the World Operation: Tango Outward PHOGS! Pizza Possum Pocky & Rocky Reshrined Pode Portal 2 Rayman Legends River Tails: Stronger Together Rogue Heroes: Ruins of Tasos Rooms of Realities Rotwood Sackboy: A Big Adventure Shift Happens Sonic Superstars Spelunky Starbound Struggling Surmount Team Sonic Racing The Adventure Pals The Expanse: A Telltale Series The Plucky Squire The Swords of Ditto Tick Tock: A Tale for Two Tipston Salvage Tools Up! Towerborne Trine 2 Unrailed! Unravel Two Unruly Heroes Untitled Goose Game Voyage We Were Here Together Who’s Your Daddy Wizard of Legend II ibb & obb
Gaywallet@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Absolutely, thank you!
zephorah@lemm.ee 7 months ago
The story lasts longer. And there’s no commercials. Why not?
I say that as an old person.
Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 months ago
I wish all games were free of commercials…
ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
Outside of sports games & racing games, and Death Stranding & Monster energy drinks, what other games have ads?
Not being argumentative. I’m a PC gamer and I’m actually curious if there’s like Pizza Hut ads while playing God Of War on a console or something!
Kissaki@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Battle and season passes and events can often be classified as ads. (Mainly “live service” games.)
Progression systems and gambling systems are a thing in games but not movies. Often taking away from inherent qualities and intrinsic motivation.
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I can’t help but feel that part of this is because to make a movie there’s a higher barrier to entry and so a lot of studios and big budget production companies keep doing the ‘safe’ thing and regurgitating already existing properties or keeping their storylines ‘safe’.
This happens in gaming too (especially with big budget frnchises) but there are really great experiments and indies out there showing what can be done, which is less so in the movie and TV industry.
People don’t always want the same thing over and over again and if executives could ever learn this it would be amazing how much creativity there would be, but they don’t.
megopie@beehaw.org 7 months ago
I don’t think it is so much that executives cannot learn, it’s more that their priorities are consistent predictable margins, not the overall health of the industry.
It’s a prisoner’s dilemma, most of the benefit of succeeding with something original is for the industry as a whole; proving certain concepts and ideas are viable, revitalizing public interest in the medium, ect. But the risks are mainly carried by a single publisher or studio, if it flops, they loose money.
So the general trend is to avoid risk and maximize predictable profit, this shrinks the over all profitability of the industry by fatiguing public interest and willingness to pay, but maximizes safety for individual publishers and studios.
Having a low budget segment that can afford to take risk on new ideas is key to preventing industry decline, but the industry has moved away from that towards the highest possible revenue generating films. The publishers and studios that used to do that have all ether folded or moved up to bigger budget higher return options, and they’ve pulled up the ladder behind them by making it so difficult to get indie projects in to theaters.
The same thing could happen in the video game industry. Luckily the indie game market exists, and they’re still able to get their products distributed on large platforms like consoles if they prove a big enough hit on the PC market. It is getting harder though, and more and more, small budget, small team games are getting relegated to PC where there is just a smaller market. Ideally, consoles should make it easier to get small indie games onto their platform, or more people should start playing on PCs.
Brahvim@lemmy.kde.social 7 months ago
That’s kinda’ how Rockstar started, apparently. Strauss Zelnik (spelling…?) told the Houder brothers to enter the gaming market because movie and music markets were too saturated and had success rates too low. Gaming was new at the time.
All of this comes from some YouTube video. Will edit in a YouTube/Invidious link to it here, sometime…
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Ooo, interesting.
Thank you, looking forward to it!
ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
The movie Everything Everywhere All at Once really brought a tear to my eye. It ignored a lot of “safe” conventions and just went all in on making a really good film.
SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Yes! I loved it, and same about tears.
FlashMobOfOne@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Video games as a narrative vehicle have come a long way.
Don_alForno@feddit.org 7 months ago
Only 63%?
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 7 months ago
For me, the turnoff with movies specifically is the hard time commitment. It’s rare that I have 2-3 hours free uninterrupted, and even if I do, I’m more drawn to the activity that I could put down after an hour if I really wanted to. Also, I’m usually picking up a game or TV show that I’ve already started, so I’m jumping into a story that I’m already invested in, rather than starting a whole new one.
Exec@pawb.social 7 months ago
The movie industry is killing movie piracy, as the age old saying goes
Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 7 months ago
well yeah, deep rock galactic is a video game, not a movie
duh
Empricorn@feddit.nl 7 months ago
I would not want to play video games with the people in the image, if they can’t hold a controller with their fingers on the triggers/shoulder buttons…
noseatbelt@lemmy.ca 7 months ago
I’m also going to need some elbow room in case I need to dodge anything.
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Haha, that’s crazy. My boomer dad may play Halo as a cover-shooter, but he can at least hold the controller properly. :P
hisao@ani.social 7 months ago
Now ask about tiktok vs games and about gacha mmos vs other games 😅
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
The value proposition is just heavily skewed towards video games. Some games cost less than a single visit to the cinema and provide heaps more entertainment. Sure, it’s different entertainment and the social aspect of going to the cinema is a factor too, but I’m not much into cinemas myself, so I know where my money goes.
nous@programming.dev 7 months ago
The social aspect of going into a dark room to watch a screen in silence? Vs talking a joking around on voice chat?
theangriestbird@beehaw.org 7 months ago
The social aspect of going to watch a movie in a dark room on a screen while everyone around me loudly “whispers” to each other and checks their phones. Not to mention the screen that is lower quality than my television at home.
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 7 months ago
If you put it that way
Faydaikin@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Add into it that a game can offer much of the same as a movie and given that it’s an interactive experience, you’re not just cheering on the hero, you are the hero.
And the social experience was risky before, but with smartphones being so prevalent, it has skewed the chances heavily towards a negative experience.
burgersc12@mander.xyz 7 months ago
Social aspect of games is way bigger than movies. You don’t even talk during a movie.
ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 7 months ago
You don’t watch a military movie and trash talk movie goers, threaten to bang their mom and then do a teabag motion when someone dies?