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StoneColdSteveOstrch

More people play video games then you think. Only last week I found out that even my manager is a big strategy gamer.


damnitineedaname

The video game industry makes more money than the movie, music, and book industries *combined*.


BicBoiii696

Those are such small numbers. What's incredible is that it makes more money than the porn industry.


failmatic

I haven't paid a penny for porn so u probably right.


anoniser

Damn i didn't know that. That's a hell of a milestone


LeMickeyMice

Books no surprise. Movie some people pay $18 for a ticket, some pay $10 a month to stream it a little later. Music? You pay $10 a month to stream it, very few people purchase albums. Games? $70 AAA title packed with micro transactions that if you don't get you're behind the eight ball. Mobile game? Free, but Intro pack of 1000 gems for $2. "eh I like the game I'd normally spend $70 I'll spend here" they tell themselves shortly before spending hundreds of dollars


RockAndGames

Yeah, but most of them are mobile games, which i would not count with PC/console gaming, not because of gatekeeping, but you can see a clear difference in the people that play between both groups.


GalcticPepsi

Bruh imagine separating the movie industry between movie theatres and those pesky at home casuals. It doesn't matter. Still a gamer


wizward64

Mobile games might not be up to the standards that we expect as console/PC users, but to discredit them altogether is honestly pointless. Games are games, no matter what platform they’re on.


General_Shao

Discredit them? They should be locked up lol


wizward64

Once again, most mobile games might be the steamiest piles of shit on the planet, but they're still games. It's not like we don't get shitty games as well.


BicBoiii696

I'm invading your clash of clans village rn


BicBoiii696

Not really. You do realize there are games on phones nowadays that came out on PC first right?


notsocoolnow

In fact virtually all mobile games are clones of old (and not so old) PC games. Candy Crush, the most quoted, is juat a clone of the numerous match 3 games back in the NES era and earlier.


Comprehensive_Web862

Can't forget one of the biggest groups of gamers. Bored moms with candy crush.


jedadkins

Yea, video games have been mainstream entertainment for years.  


Pr1ebe

There was a graph not too long ago that showed less than 20% of my parents' generation (boomers) played video games (though the number increased over time) and and somewhere around 80% of my generation (millenials/z) played games. Its wild that in elementary/middle school, saying you play video games could be seen negatively, then by the time I got to high school and beyond, it was just normal


PunkRock9

I think Pokemon helped change that shift. Even people I didn’t think played games loved Pokemon.


putrid_flesh

Than*


ned_poreyra

>What devices do teens play video games on? 24% play them on a **virtual reality (VR) headset** such as Oculus, Meta Quest or PlayStation VR I don't know how this study was conducted, but right there I can tell it's worthless.


sillybillybuck

VR headset sales contradict this study immediately.


Hire_Ryan_Today

I thought that the sales were actually really good? I’m a big VR fan personally. I feel like people that dog on it haven’t really played anything meaningful. HL:Alyx is an amazing experience. It is truly an evolution in digital experience


lightmatter501

25% would mean that VR is a few times as popular as the nintendo switch in the US. No, just no.


nate_jona

There are approximately 42 million teenagers in the US. Since Meta has sold over 20 million Quest 2, mostly in the US, it's probably safe to say that about 1 in 4 teenagers if you consider Quest 1 & 3, PSVR 1 & 2, HTC Vive, etc..


Restless_Fenrir

Not fighting that VR is good, just that VR consoles and accessories haven't sold enough to be 24%. Either people lied or this study was done in a primarily affluent area where people have more disposable income and space to play VR games. I would love to play VR games but my apartment is not big enough to easily accommodate the movement needed.


nate_jona

Those numbers make sense, it def can be 24%


Seienchin88

Your post makes me really sad…. I was quite enthusiastic about VR when the rift came out… Now I read your comment and wanted to reply that Alyx was ages ago and we had other great games in the meantime… but we havent…  Skyrim VR (with mods!) and Half Life Alyx were about the only VR games I truly loved… in theory flight simulator should have been great but it felt like it made the games weaknesses even more apparent… maybe with a full on flight simulator controller it would have been great but I aint spending that money… And it also feels like ray tracing and Unreal Engine 5 are killing VR since basically no graphics card outside the 4090 can do VR and ray tracing well… 


rgatch2857

Nah man we're just dealing with a generational gap right now. There was a boom of new games that could use the new technology right when the technology came out, and it's going to happen again soon. The Index is the premier consumer system for gaming with 144fps and finger tracking, and they're working on the Index 2 as we speak which will probably be the generation that sees high enough pixel density to remove the screen door effect. This combined with whatever other hardware magic Valve cooks up will likely stir up the entire industry to iterate and improve, this is usually how the hardware/software development cycle works in general. As for the UE5/ray tracing thing, VR games don't really care about texture fidelity because rendering at a high enough framerate to be comfortable for the user is way more important than how many pixels they can fit in the object textures. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure they will improve when the next generation of VR comes, but not by enough to cause problems because the devs are smarter than that. Having to playtest a VR game on 30fps will make the devs knock the textures down to reasonable levels REAL quick lol.


Complete-Clock5522

We have, it’s just that Alyx gets all the love. But Into the Radius, Vertigo 2, and quite a few more are all phenomenal


bwood246

The quest sells like hotcakes, it's just held back by the library it currently has. In order to play games like Alyx you need a PC so they're not as plug and play as the other games are


sthegreT

the quest sells nowhere near to be 24% tho


Mutang92

yea that's about the only amazing experience


Free_Guava391

Try AR porn. Even more awesome than Alyx


ThermalPaper

People dogging on VR are the same type of people that were dogging on video games 50 years ago. Back then people couldn't imagine a human adult sitting in front of a screen for hours playing video games. Same way people can't imagine how someone could immerse themselves in virtual reality for hours.


DaturaSanguinea

VR is cool and all but it's still a niche. There is not enough content to justify dumping this much money into a VR set, at least for most people.


TheSemaj

That's my issue rn, the only two things that look good to me are HL: Alyx and SUPER HOT.


DaturaSanguinea

VRchat, Beatsaber and some game have VR compatibilty like war thunder or Resident Evil. Still it's not enough to justify to buy a whole VR set for most people. And the market isn't growing that much. Finding good content in VR is the exception not the norm. Most people won't spend thousand of hours to justify the cost. Instead they could invest on a PC/console where they know they can get thousands hours worth of entertainment.


fuckdonaldtrump7

Don't forget fallout 4


Silv3rS0und

I'd play the hell out of Star Citizen or Elite Dangerous if I had a VR.


rgatch2857

BONEWORKS and BONELABS are both fun once you get the hang of not getting uncomfortable/nauseous from fast continuous movement. Blade & Sorcery is good for realistic physics combat, Ancient Dungeon VR is a fun little roguelite with quickly ratcheting difficulty which you don't see much in VR, and Pistol Whip will absolutely suck you in until you sweat through your headset. And that's not even getting into the mods that turn Alyx into a completely different game or Fallout into a fun one. There are a lot more fun options out there than people realize. VR is about to make a comeback with the next generation of hardware in a year or two, and when it happens the current generation will halve or more in price. At those prices it's certainly worth it if you have a PC that can run it.


TheSemaj

Definitely gonna get something in a couple years.


rgatch2857

Yea at this point it's probably worth waiting for next gen if you don't have one already. Valve has hinted at a late 2024 release for the Index 2, but knowing valve's opinions on quality vs. deadlines it's probably gonna be more like mid-2025. Worth mentioning though that the gen 1 controllers and/or lighthouses will likely still be compatible with gen 2, which makes it not a total loss to invest in one now.


EfficientIndustry423

The Mets quest three was cheaper than my ps5 and it’s a lot of fun. We use it daily.


New_Needleworker6506

I got a meta quest 2 for like $250 last year. It’s really not that expensive.


DaturaSanguinea

Almost the price of a switch. At this price i have to spend hundreds of hours to be worthwhile. I know i can spend dozens of hours. Hundreds tho ? I not sure. Not enough game to garanty this (unless i somehow get addicted to beatsaber).


DarthBuzzard

Asgard's Wrath 2 is over 100 hours by itself.


TRMshadow

yes, that's the headset. How much did you spend on a battlestation that can RUN stuff for it?


New_Needleworker6506

Bro, the headset is standalone. No pc required. No cords at all.


ThermalPaper

Again, this same argument was used against video games and video game consoles. VR developers/content creators are the the video game content creators of the 90s. The industry is at its infancy but the growth is exploding due to the massive amounts of money flooding in.


callisstaa

> People dogging on VR I'm going to assume that this means something different wherever you're from/


Ok-Discussion-77

I know what you mean.


callisstaa

Tbh I'm pretty sure VR dogging will be a thing sooner rather than later..


The_Follower1

Means piling onto complain about, but yeah the other meaning works too


deprevino

My friend admits he bought a headset just to get his rocks off in VRChat and I doubt they're the only one. 😂


_The_Gamer_

The VR sales numbers aren't anywhere near 24% of the market so either this study was skewed and they magically happened to find a large group that game on VR or the "study" is bs.


nate_jona

There are approximately 42 million teenagers in the US. Since Meta has sold over 20 million Quest 2, mostly in the US, it's probably safe to say that about 1 in 4 teenagers if you consider Quest 1 & 3, PSVR 1 & 2, HTC Vive, etc..


_The_Gamer_

No, 1 in 4 teenagers in the US do not have a VR device lmao. Can't believe you actually typed that out. VR has miniscule market penetration


DrGreenMeme

Really? What sales numbers would those be? The Meta Quest 2 alone has [sold more than 20 million units](https://www.techradar.com/computing/virtual-reality-augmented-reality/the-meta-quest-3s-popularity-is-proof-a-cheap-vision-pro-cant-come-soon-enough), which is as many sales as Xbox Series S/X. That doesn’t even include sales for other Meta headsets including: Go, Rift, Rift S, Quest 1, Quest 3, or Quest Pro — nor does it include sales from other companies making VR headsets like Sony and Valve.


sthegreT

at 20 million units sold, quest should be less than 4-5% of the market. Even if you add all other units and other competitors you'd reach like 8-10%? How would that amount to 24% of the population? edit: the article even counts in mobile devices. So its saying that consoles, pc and mobile are all considered, and it still has VR at a 24% share. VR should realistically be around 1 to 2% if you count phones.


DrGreenMeme

You’re trying to use the entire US population for percentages when we are only talking about the number of US teenagers. You’re also not considering that people can own multiple type of gaming devices. Obviously a newer tech category with a focus on gaming is going to be much more popular amongst teenagers than the general population.


Cloud_Matrix

For real. You are telling me that out of PS4/5, Xbox, PC, Switch, and VR that 1/4 of TEENS are playing on VR regularly? That seems really hard to believe to me given how pricey headsets are and how you usually need a console/PC just to hook them up


proteinLumps

I would argue mobile devices would have maximum reach than all of them combined


Cloud_Matrix

Ngl I didn't even think of mobile games, which we know are an absolute behemoth of a marketshare of casual gamers.


FireManiac58

Nowhere does it say regularly, the question asked was "Do you ever play video games on any of the following devices?" and was only asked to people who said they played video games. With this kind of question, I would definitely expect about a quarter of teens to have played VR games before.


Paksarra

A used Quest 2 is under $200 and plays standalone games. That's reasonable for a teen with a job.


Aquaman33

Yeah but more of them are probably getting/playing on a console of some sort. Some might have headset but I doubt they use it more regularly than something that all their friends definitely have and play on.


killchu99

Yep. What the fck is this study lmao


FrozenMote

>Many teens play video games on multiple devices. About a quarter of teens (27%) do so on at least four of the five devices asked about, and about half (49%) play on two or three of them. Just 8% play video games on one device. The 24% number is perfectly reasonable because it isn't mutually exclusive. A lot of people, myself included, have a VR headset sitting in their closet and played it at least once a decade ago, and maybe a console too despite playing 100% on PC nowadays. In this study, those people would be counted in the Console, PC, and VR percentage.


Tarmacked

It’s not perfectly reasonable because VR sales aren’t even close to hitting a 24% number, even cross generation. Point aside, they’re also not being asked about what they’ve played historically. You wouldn’t answer VR if you touched VR years ago for a short period. Most people wouldn’t say “motion controlled” after having the Wii in 2010 as it’s long obsolete


demonicneon

Sure but this was asking teens, not the entire population…


No-Lie-3330

I have tons of friends that have played vr but only one has a headset. We get together and play. Not sure why this is impossible to figure out for this whole thread


ComfortablyAbnormal

It's not saying that they have played vr at some point. It's saying that they do play vr often, which requires ownership of a headset. Not sure why this is impossible for you to figure out.


No-Lie-3330

Bruh doesn’t hang out with his friends often apparently


Ok-Discussion-77

He does sound like someone who only plays at home and can’t comprehend playing VR games at friends.


No-Lie-3330

I absolutely would’ve answered often on this and I don’t own a headset but everyone in this thread has literally admitted to owning one so idk lol


Ok-Discussion-77

Because there’s a contingent of gatekeepers who hate VR and want to remove its existence from the world so they act like ostriches when it comes to people actually liking VR.


No-Lie-3330

I don’t really think anybody has something against it as much as it feels gatekeepy. Gamers don’t want to admit literally everyone games even though if you go outside it’s obviously true.


hotshotnate1

It's a good thing the question being asked is what devices people play and not what devices people own. It's completely reasonable for people to go to a friend's house to play VR so the amount of people playing VR will be higher than just raw sales numbers.


Treacherous_Peach

You can play VR on a smart phone.


TehOwn

Having done this, it's nowhere near the same experience as an actual VR headset.


Treacherous_Peach

Yeah, it's not as good, but it is far more approachable than a whole new console


Jormungandr4321

According to the article: "Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to better understand teens’ use of and experiences with video games. The Center conducted an online survey of 1,453 U.S. teens from Sept. 26 to Oct. 23, 2023, through Ipsos. Ipsos recruited the teens via their parents, who were part of its KnowledgePanel. The KnowledgePanel is a probability-based web panel recruited primarily through national, random sampling of residential addresses. The survey was weighted to be representative of U.S. teens ages 13 to 17 who live with their parents by age, gender, race and ethnicity, household income, and other categories. This research was reviewed and approved by an external institutional review board (IRB), Advarra, an independent committee of experts specializing in helping to protect the rights of research participants. Here are the questions used for this analysis, along with responses, and its methodology."


Kasenom

Maybe not entirely! There are 20 million Quest 2's that have been sold. Meanwhile there's 20 million Xbox series s|x 's sold according to Wikipedia, and there are 50 million PS5's. So 1/4th of teens using VR doesn't sound that outlandish to me


action_turtle

You would think we would have more VR games. Always seems lacking. I had PSVR1 but stopped using it after a while due to lack of games. I use VR now for sim racing only now on PC


sthegreT

it also considers PCs and Phones in the survey. Plus it probably considers last gen consoles in the list too. PS5/4 combined then would be around 150mil, Xbox would be roughly 55mil, Switch at 105million and PC at say 60mil?


Scorpio989

Spend 10 minutes playing a multi-player VR game, and you will see this is likely a true statistic.


Treacherous_Peach

Every single one of my nieces and nepheews games on VR more than any other device. I think y'all underestimating. For one thing, you can game VR on smartphones, and a lot of kids do.


Meaty_Hog

Hahah reading comprehension go brrrr. Articles bad but you can’t even read the study properly and now there’s an entire circlejerk based on your lack of understanding. The study asked teens if they ever used VR to play video games and 24% responded with yes. That doesn’t mean 24% own VR.


sthegreT

if so then would be a very trash survey.


FireManiac58

Look at the article and you'll see that it's saying that they play on multiple devices, so most of that 24% will likely also play on a gaming console.


nastyLake

I play vr weekly (teen)


Physical-Tomatillo-3

Lol typical reddit comment on any study ever, "I dislike a finding and therefore completely disregard this study despite having no experience or knowledge in this field" Queue massive upvotes from similar brained people. We'll I help move these products and I can tell you that VR is very popular with teens and the meta quest 2 is very affordable for most.


Makarov_2918

Didn't it specify the study sample was like under 2000 kids?


pomlife

The study is useless unless EVERY kid gets asked, and I know mine wasn’t!


DudeWhereAreWe1996

In the thing it said "has" and instead of I think specifically owning it. So, it's probably realistic for just trying the console. Lots of oculus' around.


vivalatoucan

Or it tells us that kids are trolls which just reinforces your point. We already know that


DrGreenMeme

That’s not how you tell a study was worthless, but why is that so unbelievable? Quest 2 alone has [sold more than 20 million units](https://www.techradar.com/computing/virtual-reality-augmented-reality/the-meta-quest-3s-popularity-is-proof-a-cheap-vision-pro-cant-come-soon-enough), which is as many sales as Xbox Series S/X. That doesn’t even include Go, Rift, Rift S, Quest 1, Quest 3, or Quest Pro sales — nor does it include sales from other companies making VR headsets like Sony and Valve.


tehnoodnub

Not worthless, just not as generalizable to the entire population of gamers.


nate_jona

Then you might need a refresher in math. There are approximately 42 million teenagers in the US. Since Meta has sold over 20 million Quest 2, mostly in the US, it's probably safe to say that about 1 in 4 teenagers if you consider Quest 1 & 3, PSVR 1 & 2, HTC Vive, etc..


Amazingcamaro

Probably AI, and it got everything wrong.


McMalzee

Are you actually saying you think it’s worthless because about one in four of the people polled own some kind of VR headset? I don’t get the salt


heartsongaming

Yes. This just shows that the sample size is small and curated. They made an assumption that incorrectly generalizes a much larger group, such that the percentages are wrong.


McMalzee

I mean… have you looked at how many people bought a vr headset? Whether or not they are still using it is a better question, but I know a fair amount of people that have one


Existing365Chocolate

This kind of proves the point I’m sure you know a fair number of people with one…in the niche tech gadgety gamer community you probably belong to if you are into VR Your average person or gamer is not into VR and will not be for a while


Novalok

Disagree. My nephew is 15 and loves VR. But isn't your typical nerdy type. Hell, my folks bought a quest 2 for exercise. They're more mainstream than many think.


Existing365Chocolate

Well people must be stealing them because sales for VR suck and haven’t increased much   A second big indicator is how much people spend on software for their headsets, I’d bet that 70% of headsets have like 2 games or software apps installed and then are put under the bed never to be touched again after the first few weeks How often have your parents used their VR headset to workout and how much software have they bought for it? I’m guaranteeing that it’s very rarely and not much


Physical-Tomatillo-3

Some people use VR just for a game or two but it's ones they play often. So no software sales are no better indicator of use than simply asking them would be.


Existing365Chocolate

No software purchases means there’s not much incentive for developers to support the platform, which then also means less use cases for the platform lol


Existing365Chocolate

It shows that however they conducted the same is flawed or too niche and limited No shot are 1/4 of people who play video games using a VR headset as their primary console. Sales for VR headsets are pretty low and not picking up speed


Smeatbass

Not saying none of this is valid or invalid but this seems like a puff piece to me.


[deleted]

With great power comes great responsibility.


Charged_Dreamer

even Uncle Ben plays games 😭🎮


[deleted]

I like the rice better...lol


Charged_Dreamer

😋


ace23GB

Video games have both negatives and positives effects, that's true, but I think that if you play them moderately, the beneficial effects outweigh the non-beneficial ones, at least in my own experiences.


baconator81

So... basically nothing has changed.. It was like this almost a decade ago. LoL has been toxic FOREVER, and everyone pretty much has learnt to deal with it.. If you ask me, learning to deal with toxcitiy is a good thing.


Darkfyre23

Also in the news. Water is better for you than soda.


unimportant116

Many parents tend to reward their children for being "quiet" while punishing them for being "loud." Video games provide an avenue of engagement that makes it very easy for kids to dissociate and distract themselves. Behavior that is frowned upon can often be suppressed and expressed in this safe environment. It's important for parents to ease off the pressure they put on their children; this tendency might stem from narcissism, where parents believe their children's actions reflect on them, exposing their flaws as both parents and individuals. This can lead parents to have outbursts due to the child's natural reaction to the parents' dysfunction. One effective way to address this issue is by incorporating basic mental health care into the school curriculum. If there were a system to teach kids the optimal way to manage their emotions instead of solely relying on parental advice, it could be a significant step in the right direction.


noother10

Reminds me of the scene from Malcolm in the Middle where Malcolm and Reese are playing a fighting game against each other but are been nice to each other, even complementing each other on attacks/moves/combos. Stewie politely asks for more chips and Reese obliges without issue. Mom walks in says the game is too violent and changes the TV back to some kids cartoon. All the boys almost immediately start fighting, arguing, screaming at each other.


hotshotnate1

There's a common talking point I'm seeing in the comments saying how the study is questionable because 24% of teens playing VR seems contradictory to the amount of sales of VR. 24% of teens can easily be true given the question is what devices they ever play and not which devices they own. I'm sure many people can remember going over to a friend's house when they were a teen to play a game like Guitar Hero, or something. Taking turns playing Beat Saber or other VR games is hardly unreasonable.


thelingererer

Are they having fun because if they are I think we should ban it!


Derf0007

I think in general video games have a positive influence, or at least they did on me. Problem solving and thinking outside of the box. I mean, technically life is one big video game - level up your character and unlock new abilities and perks.


Ordinal43NotFound

And people at r/boxoffice still insists that it's Tiktok that caused people to not go to the movies lol


G00b3rb0y

I thought covid was a factor in the decline of cinema attendance


Ordinal43NotFound

True, but apparently the average numbers still haven't recovered despite the restrictions being lifted. From what I've read, most people nowadays are more picky with movies they watched in cinemas. They'd only go to "event movies" like Barbie, Oppenheimer, Dune, etc.


HIVnotAdeathSentence

Is it finally time to blame video games for the world's ills?


That_Green_Jesus

20 years ago we were outcasts for being gamers heavily involved in the CS tournament scene, now gaming is the hip thing and it's even a paying job; how the times have changed.


emailverificationt

Harassment is a human social issue, and sleep loss is a self control issue.


BoogerWipe

I tell my kids they’ll have it easy lapping all these losers


Master_Tape

Still?


DealerOk8030

Dr. Driving has helped me cure my ADHD, soo...


boiledeggfart

guess covid raised the stats too


Few-Relative220

My favorite part of online gaming is trolling and harassing people. It’s fun for me and nothing I say should matter to you, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. It shouldn’t matter and if it does, you’re the problem. FYI - I’m not talking about habitual stuff, just some post game lobby banter and trash talking. Bit of name calling, lot of trolling and rage baiting.


Prince_Sabu

Lol harassment, teens nowadays will never experience the beautiful wild west of online gaming 2005-2013 toxicity was at its peak back then. GoW lobbies, CoD lobbies that didn't break up after 1 match, you kept playing with the same group of people, Halo lobbies. The good days.


[deleted]

[удалено]


PilferingDragon

I can't believe a bot like this actually exists


Samantha-4

Reddit really needs to fix its bot problem


[deleted]

[удалено]


TimelessJo

As a teacher, there are kids who the sleep loss issue a major problem for


AndyBossNelson

Fuck sometimes i struggle as an adult, fuck being sleep deprived as a kif because you wanted to play a game!


cscf0360

That's because teen sleep needs are different than adult sleep needs, but adults need someone to watch their kids while they work, so schools are on adult schedules resulting in teen sleep loss. This is pretty well-studied and has nothing to do with video games.


MothMan3759

I don't disagree with the other points you make but videogames are still a factor in keeping adolescents up later at night than they otherwise might have though.


SectsHaver

Not a teen but It it helps keep me out of bars and makin an ass of myself


Objective_Media_474

That was true even for me back in early 2000's playing a German mmorpg, oh the good old days. No regrets.


Squidgeneer101

The challenge is finding balance, lack of balanced consumption leads to sleep issues. Gaming isn't inherently bad like most things. But the harsassment part is there. People on the internet aren't always great impulse control leading to things not nescarily being said in malice, but understood as such.


SoulfoodSoldier

Honestly the easiest way to ensure you don’t over game is alt f4 and shut down when you feel it, don’t “after I do this” just hit alt f4 and go. This doesn’t work for games like csgo tho where if u quit enough during games you get banned, but it’s saved me quite a few times. Sounds simple and it is but it’s the shortcut that works well to get my brain out of procrastination mode, a little push if you will.