Hey guys, welcome back to Clownfish TV. This is Neon. I'm not here with Geeky Sparkles. I'm going to talk about video games. I'm going to talk about Gen Z noping out of video games. This is kind of a cringey. This is kind of a cringy uh way to put it here. This coming from Vice. Uh Jenz is cutting back on video game purchases. Like really cutting back. Uh, yeah, we're going to talk about this because it seems like Gen Z and Gen Alpha especially are not spending money on video games. It could be because Gen Z and Gen Alpha do not have a lot of disposable income, but I suspect there's something else going on. I think the quality of the games for the price of the games is just not worth it. In fact, uh, we were covering this before. We said that a lot of Gen Z and Gen Alpha are going back to retro consoles or going back to arcades. In fact, uh, Chuck-E-Cheese just kind of rebranded. They've got a more adult arcade now. They're uh they're coming back and they're bringing like retro games with them and all that. It's actually pretty cool. Down south, I think they're doing a bunch of them down south. Chucks, I think it's called, or something. I don't know. Anyway, uh yeah, so there is a hunger for classic video games, complete video games, video games that don't cost $80, 90. And uh you know, we we've seen a lot of layoffs in the video game industry. In fact, uh, yesterday there were more, I think it was yesterday or day before, there's a bunch more layoffs at Microsoft. It's not sustainable. People aren't buying this [ __ ] It's kind of like vinyl, right? They'd rather go back and play vintage games, complete games or games they're familiar with and uh maybe just, you know, revisit that uh that backlog of of uh Steam games they got on sale they haven't had a chance to play yet. But let's uh let's talk about this. Before we get into it any further, please subscribe for more pop culture news, views, and rants, guys. Go out to news.clownfishtv.com. We've got more podcasts out there. We're going to be ramping up content over there as well. News.clownfishtv.com. You can sign up for free, but if you want the paywald content, uh the exclusive podcast, it's $5 a month. Help support the channel because God knows YouTube is not going to here in the very near future. So, let's um let's look at the Vice article first. I I just I can't get past this. Are you a zoomer? Do you like video games? And does it feel like the economy reeks? Well, if you've been avoiding a Nintendo Switch, too, if you plan on skipping out on EA Sports College Football 26, you're not alone. Apparently, spending on the gaming industry is bottoming out among Gen Z. At least according to data from American research group Circana, or is it Circana? They said Zoomer spending on games dropped by a quarter. Okay, so according to the Wall Street Journal, uh, Circana found both online and retail purchases among ages 18 to 24 dropped by 13% from January to April compared to the year prior. In particular, they found that young zoomers were spending nearly 25% less per week on video games than in 2024. Maybe if there are some games worth buying, they would spend money on those games. While purchases for accessories, small appliances, technology, and total general merchandise had dropped with young adults, video gaming took the lead in their data, the drop off was enormous for 18 to 24 year old gamers as data on other age group uh age groups revealed a minor singledigit decline well under 5%. Maybe, just maybe, the economy is not great and uh people that are just starting out in life, 18 to 24, getting their first place, maybe they have more pressing matters. Maybe they have actual bills that need paid. Maybe maybe food costs a lot more than it used to and an $80 Mario Kart isn't really on the list of priorities. I'm just saying when you don't have a lot of disposable income. Uh Rachel Wolf concluded that contributing factors to drop spending include a difficult job market, student loans, and a particularly high credit card delinquency rate among those aged 18 to 29. Maybe they were all putting their video games on a credit card and then skipping out on the bill. Maybe that's, you know, wouldn't that be funny if like the AAA gaming industry was actually bankrolled by a bunch of kids that maxed out their credit cards and skipped out on the bill and now they It's like, hey, everything's collapsing right now. This group is struggling more than older cohorts. An economist with Wells Fargo told the Wall Street Journal Jouro. The Wall Street Journal, yeah, there's one of them. Wall Street Journal since younger consumers are not only spending less today but probably saving less that could dent their ability to build wealth in the future. I don't think that's just that's everything. I think they're noping out because they don't want to play these shitty games. I think that if you've got a $100 to spend, you could go buy one AAA or quadruple AAA title that's probably going to be incomplete, probably going to disappoint, probably going to lead to a lot of online drama, and could at some point in time uh be unplayable, right? The whole stop killing games thing, like you might buy this game, hundred bucks, and in like five years they they end support for it and you can't play it. Wouldn't that suck? Oh, wouldn't that suck? So, this is Matt uh Piscatella, an executive director and video game industry analyst with Circa shared some insight on blue sky. Of course, it's on blue sky. Overall purchasing by 18 to 24 is plummeted, especially when compared to other age groups. The rug's not being pulled out from under young people. It's being burned while they're still standing on. So, that is of course uh coming from Blue Sky. But look, I I'm going to be honest. This is as a u a Gen Xer. things are a lot more expensive now. Inflation is so bad. And I remember people tried to gaslight us into thinking the inflation wasn't that bad. I'm like, I've seen prices jump more in the last five to six years than I ever have in any point in time in my life, right? And I'm in my 40s, so I'm not like super old, but I'm I'm I'm twice the age of these people. And uh I've seen a steady increase in prices over the decades. Um, but nothing as radical as it's been the last couple of years, especially since the pandemic. Like, it's just astronomical. Like food prices, stuff's doubled, tripled in some cases. Now, the good news is at our local Aldi, the eggs are under $3 a dozen. So, there's that if that's a litmus test. But so many other things jumped up. In fact, Geeky went grocery shopping the other day and she came back and she's like, "For 150 bucks, I got maybe $60 worth of groceries." She's like, "It's so bad compared to what it used to be." Um, as the report notes, young consumers are expected to spend heavily in the entertainment sector, giving college students and recent grads traditionally uh now have low financial responsibilities. But if Gen Z's young adults can't spend it on gaming, that isn't a promising sign for the industry's future. And yeah, they're laying people off all over the place, right? And I think again I think what's going on here um and it's it's a bunch of different uh issues. No Metro, I'm not disabling my ad blocker. Sorry. But uh yeah, retro gaming is getting unexpectedly popular with younger generations. Uh according to Metro in the UK, 74% of Britain say they play old school games to relax. I know vintage uh game stores and retro arcades are picking up in popularity and you do see a lot of younger kids come in by kids I mean teenagers, young adults and you know we may or may not have firsthand knowledge of this. Uh but yeah, I mean if you can for a couple hundred bucks pick up an N64, go get yourself an Everdrive or something. Uh you're good to go. You don't you know what I'm saying? like you don't need to go buy AAA titles. Let's see what um gamesindustry.biz is saying. They said video game spending by young Americans is dropping sharply. Report suggests uh they said there are numerous factors behind the pressures on spending. Uh the job market, student loan payments, credit card debt, and shitty video games. Shitty, overpriced, gotcha video games. Why won't they say it? Why won't they say that part of the reason people are not spending as much money on video games might be the games themselves? Because I understand that, yeah, uh, all this other stuff costs more, but if you're a real fan, you'll find $80 to buy a video game. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. They're just they're not they're not saying uh they're not saying what uh the the actual problem is in my opinion. I I do believe it's it's money, but I think it's just the games themselves are not that good. Um, yeah, there said the data emerges amid a time of rising hardware and software cost in the video game sector. Xbox recently increased the price of consoles. That was idiotic. Uh, with upcoming games set to cost $80. Outer Worlds 2 will be the first at that price point. Remember? Yeah, I remember just a couple weeks ago people were like, "The games aren't $80 isn't going to be the new normal for video games. You ch it's like no, [ __ ] off. there 100%. It's going to be the new normal because once people pay it, this is this is the Disney mindset right here. Um, so what's going to happen is that as the normies no longer want to buy the new AAA titles and the new consoles or whatever, the consoles and the AAA titles are going to be for the wealthy. That's what they're going to do. They're going to target people that have disposable income. That means they're going to Yeah. It's kind of like the comic book industry now. like people are buying the chromium, you know, 55 variant covers and the whole [ __ ] the collectible stuff. And that's what's going to happen here, too. Uh I think that consoles and uh releases are going to be more like exclusive, more premium, and they're probably going to sell fewer copies because I don't think a lot of these kids are going to be buying, you know, the $100, $120, you know, premium edition of a game. They're going to make more collectibles. are going to make more games that come packed with a bunch of stuff. You know, everything is going to be like Limited Run Games or whatever where it's got a bunch of stuff with it. Except in case of Limited Run Games, you'd have to wait like, you know, four years to get it or whatever it is. But, you know what I'm saying? Like, that's what I think they're going to do. I think they're going to turn physical releases and consoles into or at least physical releases into uh you know kind of a collectible market and they're going to charge a premium price because the normies aren't going to buy the physical releases. They'll buy it on sale on digital later and the plebs can have their Mario Kart on sale for 60 bucks or whatever six months down the line. But we're going to we're going to juice the the die hards just like Disney. We're going to get the our top fans to pay as much as possible at launch of new game or whatever. We're going to make games tailored to their their uh whims. And I think that means that this is part of the reason that they laid a bunch of people off in the AAA gaming space. I believe because they know going forward it's going to be the older people with money that keep the game afloat. So, you better make games that they want to buy. Just like the comic book industry, they'll figure it out later, too late possibly, but they'll be like, "Oh, yeah. We need people over like 30, over 40 that actually have jobs and money uh hopefully to buy our stuff. So, um pretty interesting though. Um but yeah, there's like a whole retro revival uh like all this stuff is coming back. Care Bears and Sylvanian families and all stuff and we have seen it. Uh we mentioned before, it's not a big I mean, we have um we actually have uh a business that's half retro arcade and half it's not a comic shop, but we do sell like nerd collectibles and games and and stuff like that. Uh I don't consider a comic shop because we don't carry new floppies because I'm not a massochist, so I don't want have to unload that [ __ ] But we have a lot of vintage toys and vintage toys sell very well and it's a lot of younger people. We had a girl come in at one time. And I remember I like cleaned this out of vintage Strawberry Shortcake dolls. And she was like maybe 14 and I'm like, "Hey, you can go to Walmart and buy the new ones." She didn't want the new ones. She wanted the the vintage stuff. So that's that's pretty cool. Geek will be all about this. Uh she loves all this stuff. So there we go, guys. Um anyway, I'm going to wrap this uh wrap this one up. Pretty interesting stuff. And I think it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt a lot. It's going to hurt the AAA gaming industry uh quite a bit. And uh yeah, I mean I think we're just going to have a leaner, meaner, more focused industry going forward, but there are going to be a lot of people out of work. I believe in the very near future it's going to continue. So uh brace for it, right? Brace for it. Uh please subscribe for more pop culture news, views, and rants. We'll talk later. For more pop culture news, views, and rants, go to news.clownfishtv.com. That's news.clownfishtv. at clownfishtv.com.