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Gaming’s next winners will be built on player focus, AI-powered personalization, and direct relationships, Bain & Co report finds
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The most active players make up nearly 60% of all time played, while the highest-spending group accounts for 75% of total spending
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AI can speed up game development, but it won’t save an unfocused game; without a clear target player, it scales wrong bets faster
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Nearly half of gamers have bypassed app stores to buy directly from developers in the past year, and personalized offers are more effective than generic discounts
LOS ANGELES, Aug. 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The average gamer no longer exists: an effectively unlimited game catalog has fragmented player preferences, while playing time and spending have become heavily concentrated among a narrow, identifiable set of players, making chasing the average player the costliest mistake in the industry today. These are the key findings of Bain & Company’s 2026 Gaming Report, which draws on a survey of more than 5,300 gamers across the world, as well as Bain’s proprietary analysis of 100 titles released since 2023.
In its third edition, the report follows from last year’s observation of a growing direct-to-consumer trend that has culminated to nearly half of gamers buying direct today. “The question for gaming executives is no longer solely about reaching more players. It’s reaching the right players, in the right way, and getting more ownership over that relationship,” said Anders Christofferson, partner of Bain’s <a href="https://edge.prnewswire.com/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=4754545-1&h=1044291012&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bain.com%2Findustry-expertise%2Fmedia-and-<a href="https://comicvibe.com/encash-entertainment-schedules-agm-for-september-29-2026/” title=”Encash Entertainment schedules AGM for September 29, 2026″>entertainment%2F&a=Media+%26+Entertainment” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>Media & Entertainment practice and global head of Bain’s Video Game sector. “The studios pulling ahead are the ones that have made a deliberate choice about who they are building for and are aligning every resource behind that answer; AI, distribution, and personalization alike.”
End of the average gamer: preferences are broadening, yet spending concentrates –
Surveyed gamers are split across the gaming experiences they want most. No single experience type attracted more than 26% of respondents. The divergence is more obvious when comparing across age cohorts: a third of 13-to-17-year-olds want open, user-generated content, a share that collapses to 15% or lower among players aged 50 and older.
Spending follows a similarly uneven pattern. Twenty percent of the highest-spending players account for nearly three-quarters of total spending, but the most active 20% of players account for almost 60% of all playing time. Demographics play a significant role as the willingness to spend declines with age. The report finds that 86% of teenage gamers spend money on gaming each month, compared to only 36% of players in their 60s and 27% in their 70s. Additionally, those who create game content for public use are twice as likely to spend money, Bain’s survey finds.
