Video Games are Losing the "Attention War" to Gambling, Porn, and Crypto
An Anonymous Coward writes:
An industry report claims that video games are losing the attention war to gambling, porn, and crypto:
A new report by Epyllion, a gaming industry advisory company headed by venture capitalist and market guru Matthew Ball, has broken down the state of the video game industry, and has published data indicating the medium is losing the war for people's attention to other ventures, including gambling, crypto, and pornography.
The report, a lengthy 164-page presentation which you can (and should) read yourself, dedicates a whole section called "Video Games are losing the attention war in the 'Major Market 8'" to the topic. It starts by comparing pre and post pandemic consumer spending from eight major video game markets - the USA, Japan, South Korea, UK, Germany, France, Canada, and Italy.
Prior to the pandemic, these countries made up over 60 percent of total spending on video games. Post-pandemic, almost all of these regions have seen a drop in gaming population. In the US, 2.5-4 points worth of players stopped playing video games, the Canadian Trade Association found in its latest report that roughly one-in-six players prior to the pandemic have stopped playing.
These decreases in participation have resulted, the report posits, in a drop in spending. In the US, PC and console spend is down eight percent since 2020 / 2021, which comes to roughly $2.3bn. Mobile gaming's US annual growth in terms of spending has largely flattened since 2025, but it's still above 12 percent compared to 2020, and now beats out console spend.
Total spend across all "Major Market 8" regions on console and PC shrunk by $4.8bn, and mobile is down by $2.3bn, all while five of these eight markets are at all-time highs in terms of total spend. This money is instead going elsewhere, to Roblox for example, which the report states makes up 67 percent of net growth.
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During this 2025 period, AI apps that allowed for "role play, erotica, and art" have soared. The latest tracked statistic for installs for this software came to just under one billion worldwide.
Prediction markets, where users can bet on events that happen in the world, also had a recent boom in popularity. Users placed 1.5m bets a day during Q4 2025. Online Sports Betting is also taking potential users' money. In 2025, US net losses due to sports betting passed $17bn, a 35x increase from 2019 as these sorts of services become normalised, legalised, and integrated into sports in the USA. Despite bans in other countries, international net losses are around $53bn a year.
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The report states: "Video Gaming's post-pandemic problem isn't that players choose to watch TikTok instead of buying a AAA game, or subscribe to Onlyfans instead of buying a PlayStation; it's that on a Friday evening, players are placing a growing share of their time and spend elsewhere."
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