Indie games: who buys what, and why?

gamesindustry.biz:

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Consumers who buy indie games seek titles priced between $15 and $25, discover their next purchase via YouTube, and prefer single-player experiences.

That's according to a study conducted by an independent analyst group on behalf of Humble Games, which surveyed around 5,000 gamers between 18 and 45 years of age, living in six different countries, while trying to trace a profile of people who buy indie games.

Humble's product marketing lead Phil Hofman presented the findings of this study during a talk at GDC 2023 earlier this year. Throughout his session, Hofman reiterated many times that the results of this study are not to be taken as roadmap and do not necessarily depict an exact representation of how things are on a granular level but nonetheless contain lots of interesting data.

The study broadly divided video games buyers in three categories – Regulars, Lights and Traditionals:

40% of the people who participated in the study ended up in the first two categories, meaning they had bought at least one indie game in the previous year.

Indie games buyers appreciate original IPs and ambitious developers who take risks

According to the survey, Traditionals tend to spend less time gaming at twelve hours per week on average, while Lights sit around 15 hours and Regulars are around 18. Lights and Regulars tend to buy more games on PC and – contrary to what Hofman said Humble expected to see – Regulars buy all kind of games, even buying more AAA games compared to the other two categories of buyers.

The survey also explored personal attitudes, and the three categories of video games buyers are more or less on the same page for many of the