New Study Reveals The Main Reasons People Want To Play Games
GameSpot parent company Fandom has released its fourth annual Inside Gaming report, and one of the key takeaways is that personal expression within games is increasingly important to players. The Inside Gaming report is based on data from Fandom’s 350 million monthly unique visitors, 45 million pages of content, and 250,000 wikis.
The report found that the main reason people play games is to unwind and relieve stress (54%), but a close second was “creation, imagination, and self-expression” (46%). This is up 10% from 2023, demonstrating a growing trend. Within games, the top five in-game customization players seek out to express themselves include character personalization (76%), Gamertags and usernames (48%), communication (35%), signatures and emblems (31%), and emotions and gestures (30%).
The report also found that there is a significant gap between how people express themselves in real life versus online. 80% of respondents said their “gamer personality” is different than their real-life personality. And then 64% said it’s easier to be themselves online rather than in person.