A newly released joint report from marketing, media, and data firm Comscore and in-game advertiser Anzu found that in 2023, 82% of US gamers made in-game purchases in a "freemium" game of some kind, per Games Industry's read of the paywalled report.
If you'd asked me what this figure would've been, as someone who's been writing about games for over 10 years, I would've guessed it'd be pretty high, but 82% beats even my expectations. There are more, arguably more interesting stats in the report, and this sort of data can only yield a vertical slice of a much larger market. But these aren't throwaway findings, and this US figure speaks to the meteoric rise and enduring popularity of long-tail monetization in games, even as MTX fatigue continually and understandably drives many people to chant, "Vote with your wallet." People have been voting with their wallets; that's how we got here.
