Teen Gamers' Spending Concentrates in Top Tenth, Study Finds

The top tenth of teenagers who spend money inside video games account for 61.4 percent of all the money, according to a study of 2,308 students aged 10 to 19 led by Markus Meschik at UAS St. Pölten in Austria. Researchers handed questionnaires out in class rather than online. Of the 2,308 students, 818 said they'd put money into a game in the previous twelve months, and their combined reported spending came to about 139,000 euros, roughly $162,000.

The concentration is the finding. The 85 biggest spenders, 10.4 percent of the payers, produced that 61.4 percent share. Each of them reported spending between 400 and 12,000 euros over the year, averaging about 1,005 euros, roughly $1,174. The typical student in the survey reported receiving about 50 euros a month, around $58, so the average heavy spender put twenty months of that income into games in a single year.

Measured with a Gini coefficient, the standard tool for inequality, in-game spending among these teenagers scored 0.854. German gambling spending, measured the same way in earlier research, came out at 0.879. Meschik's point is about who carries the protection duty: in gambling, governments have taken substantial responsibility for protecting consumers, while in gaming much of that responsibility is still left to parents.

Family income didn't predict who spent heavily, and the researchers expected it to. Each household got a score on a standard family affluence scale covering cars and family holidays. Heavy spenders averaged 9.58 out of 13. Everyone else averaged 9.71. The two groups were effectively identical, and when age, sex, family wealth and gaming disorder symptoms were tested together, family wealth was the one factor that didn't predict heavy spending.

Spending peaked earlier than the researchers assumed. Across everyone who paid, the average was about 170 euros over the year, roughly 14 euros a month. Boys averaged about 181 euros and girls about 102. The 15 and 16 year olds spent the most, averaging about 216 euros, and the 17 to 19 group spent less. The authors read the peak as the stretch when gaming matters most to a teenager's friendships and sense of who they are.

How the money leaves the house matters for any parent checking a statement. Among payers, 63.8 percent used prepaid cards, which don't show up on a parent's account. PayPal came next at 23.0 percent, and 17.6 percent reached for a parent's credit or debit card. The study also screened for gaming disorder: 14.1 percent of heavy spenders scored above the threshold, against 4.2 percent of the other payers, and the 43 payers who screened positive produced 10.3 percent of all reported spending. The study can't establish which came first, and it doesn't claim to. It establishes the shape of the market: free to install, and carried by a small group of teenagers spending a great deal.