A survey has found only a tiny amount of players in the US are buying new games every month, while a third barely buy new games at all.
The games industry has been in a state of flux over recent years for many reasons, between rising development costs and consistent layoffs, but another key factor is the changing habits of players.
We’ve already seen how many gamers today are spending a significant amount of time in live service titles like Fortnite, Roblox, and Minecraft, at the expense of new games.
Now, a new survey has highlighted how few games most people are actually buying, and it’s a grim reflection of how difficult it is to reach a broad audience. And of how many people now view triple-A video games as prohibitively expensive.
As part of Circana’s Q3 2025 Future Of Games survey, shared by senior director Mat Piscatella, it shows only 4% of video game players in the US buy a new game (defined as not used or sold in a second-hand marketplace) more often than once a month.
At the other end of the results, a whopping 33% buy a new game less often than once a year, which suggests they are either playing free-to-play titles, getting games from subscription services like PS Plus or Xbox Game Pass, or just not playing new games that often.
Additionally, only 12% buy a new game about once a year, while 18% are buying a new game about once every six months. As such, this means 63% of gamers in the US buy two games or fewer every year.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
Elsewhere, 22% of players buy a new game once every three months, while 10% buy a new title about once every month.
As highlighted by Piscatella, this survey covers console, PC, and mobile gamers, so the latter has possibly skewed the results. Nevertheless, it shows how free-to-play live service titles and subscription services are impacting the spending habits of gamers at a broad scale.
Speaking about the findings, Piscatella suggests the 14% who are ‘hyper enthusiast, price-insensitive players’ are the reason why rising game prices and expensive collector’s editions are so prevalent today, as most people skew towards free-to-play.
‘Been talking about this trend for years when it comes to games spending,’ he noted in a separate post. ‘Why are there premium gamepads, $149 collector’s editions, Pro consoles and general rising prices? Because the price-insensitive, affluent players are the ones doing more of the spending as everyone else shifts more to free-to-play.’
This survey is US specific, but the picture might be even worse in Europe. According to a report released earlier this year, European gamers spend almost three times less than North American players on gaming overall.
While this is partially reflective of current spending habits, the highest-selling games of the year often suggest most casual gamers rarely stray beyond Call Of Duty and sports titles like EA Sports FC each year, so it’s also a continuation of that too.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.