'These kids do not care about romance': Game devs want to know what today's teens want, and surveys say sex and romance isn't it
Surveys say that today's youth are more interested in stories about platonic friendships and social groups than romance and sex, and game developers are taking note of that and other trends in teen media consumption.
To a crowd of games industry professionals at D.I.C.E. Summit last week, TV executive turned game studio founder Sharon Tal Yguado and Roblox VP of civility and partnerships Tami Bhaumik spoke about «what teens want,» presenting recent research and their observations.
The first observation: Kids are lonely. According to one study, 73% of young people ages 16 to 24 say they sometimes or always feel alone. Many also report feeling sad and hopeless. Bhaumik attributes this to everything: the state of the world, climate change, social media feeds.
It isn't all doom and gloom. Citing research from UCLA's Center for Scholars and Storytellers, Yguado said that young people aren't the superficial, fad-obsessed TikTok fiends they're made out to be: They care about things like safety, kindness, acceptance, physical fitness, friendship, and spiritual connection, she said.
Teens are less interested, however, in romance: «Like I seriously am worried about the population in the future, because these kids do not care about romance,» Yguado said in a joking-but-not-joking tone.
In UCLA's 2024 Teens and Screens report, adolescents were surveyed about what they want to see in media, and «romance and/or sex» came in 15th out of 21 options. Its opposite, «content that doesn't include sex or romance,» came in at 8th place. «Friendships and social groups» came in 5th.
This so-called «nomance» attitude is on the rise, UCLA researchers say. In 2023's report, 51.5% of adolescents «desired content that focuses on platonic relationships and friendships,» and in 2024's report it was 63.5%. The percentage of adolescents who said that «sex and sexual content are not needed to advance the plot of TV shows and/or movies» also rose over the same period from 47.5% to 62.4%.
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