Console gaming has highest play-to-pay conversion rate, analyst firm Newzoo says

A new report from analyst firm Newzoo concludes that console gamers are more likely to go from players to payers.

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Console gaming has more payers than mobile and PC gaming, a new report from Newzoo indicates. Based on the report, which measured a size of 59,040 gamers in a global weighted average across 36 markets, roughly 57% of people who played video games in the last 6 months actually spent money on them. This implies that around 43% of gamers, or over 25,000 people, play free-to-play titles and don't actually spend money on games.

The data is part of Newzoo's robust Global Gamer Study analysis, which can be found here.

Of those who play console games, 87% of them actually spend money on in-game items such as cosmetics and microtransactions.

In the past six months, 57% of players spent money on video games.

On top of that, console gaming has the highest play-to-pay conversion rate and is the platform with the highest share of players we identify as big spenders (people who spend more than $25 a month on games). We can likely attribute this consumer trend to the prevalence of pay-to-play games on this platform and the popularity of console subscriptions.

Zooming in on in-game spending, top motivations to spend include:

• Special offers
• Extra or exclusive playable content
• Customization

Also, nearly all those who spend on video games have directed some of their spending toward in-game item purchases (87%) in the past 6 months. In-game currencies, expansions or content packs, and gear were the most popular in-game items purchased in the past 6 months.