The Summer Season Makes Gamers More Sentimental, According to G2A Study

The results of G2A’s retro gaming and Tinder surveys are in!

G2A.COM, the world’s largest marketplace for digital products, today announced the results of its retro gaming and Tinder studies. What summer brings – aside from vacations and well-earned rest, obviously — are often wonderful memories of childhood, often spent on playing the most amazing video games now considered “retro.” It’s also a great opportunity for everyone to embark on some daring adventures, like in the games or movies. These often involve romance, so why not go on some dates?

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And so, G2A felt this is something to ask our users about. What do they think of retro gaming? Would they be open to dating a video game character and who would their pick be?

Now, we’ve analyzed the results, so it’s time to present our findings. You might be in for a few surprises here!

The following regions were considered: Global, U.S., and Spain. The results are averages for the entire world, but we’ve also surveyed the U.S. and Spanish regions separately, and the results were compared with the general populace.

Without further ado, let’s look at our findings!

The retro gaming survey results

Don’t you just love the feeling when the summer starts and that lovely sense of nostalgia kicks in? Like, when you were carefree kids with all the time in the world to play their favorite video games, such as Pokémon or Legend of Zelda. While these days are long gone for most of us, we can still relive our cherished memories thanks to retro games and such.

One thing’s for sure, though: G2A users sure love retro gaming and all-time classics. Better yet, this is a perfect opportunity for various generations — parents and their children — to bond, as shown by the findings we’ve presented in this article. Traditional methods of building connections with your progeny? Forget them. It’s time for some intergenerational gaming!

Where does this nostalgia come from, though? There are several hypotheses. First off, the generation that grew up on retro games might constitute a majority of the respondents. However, many of them are younger, which brings us to another question: What makes them feel this nostalgia? Maybe it’s this longing for the times that they never experienced and never will? It’s certainly something that should be studied, a perfect ground for more research.

Here are the results of the survey:

• The majority of respondents (64%) love retro games.
• A vast majority — a whopping 85% — are young or very young (35 or younger).
• All regions (Global, U.S., ES) love classic RPGs (e.g., Baldur’s Gate) and shooters (e.g., Doom) the most. Platform games (Rayman, for example) ranked third globally, but not in the U.S. and ES regions; real-time strategies (such as Age of Empires) were the third most popular genre there.
• In general, people prefer to play solo, but as it turns out, those in the U.S. are just as likely to play with others (it’s 50/50), meaning they’re open to multiplayer games.
• The return to retro visuals, e.g., pixel art or 90s style graphics, is what makes people all over the world happy. 70% responded they love that.
• The last question: What people love the most about retro games is their story component. When it comes to the simplicity of gameplay, most of the world longs for it, except for Spain where it ranked fourth.

The fact that you fell in love with retro games doesn’t mean there isn’t any room for more romantic interests. Remember when having a summer crush was almost like a rite of passage in your teenage years? Yup, these hot, carefree months have a way of making people experience the thrill of infatuation. This brings us to the second survey we prepared. Let’s look at its results!

The Tinder dating survey results

We’re all witnessing a certain paradigm shift; asking people if they’d like to date a video game character would’ve raised quite a few eyebrows a decade or so ago. Today, however, it’s a question that people respond to positively, often with a resounding YES.

It’s probably more of a thought experiment for our respondents, but still, consider the following: Video game characters are generally designed to reflect the current canons of beauty and virtue. Many of them are physically attractive, combat-ready and capable of achieving great feats. Take Nathan Drake, the protagonist of the Uncharted series, for example. Sure, he’s athletic and good-looking, but he also boasts an everyman kind of persona — he’s very likeable, too, and feels more like a real person than a typical over-the-top action hero of the 80s or the early 90s.

This is probably true for a lot of video game characters out there, such as Geralt of The Witcher games, Chun Li of Street Fighter fame, and the like. This could be attributed to the fact that we live in times where we consume content fast. As such, imagery is especially powerful nowadays.

However, some of the responses were more puzzling. Perhaps this was done just for the kicks, but there were folks who chose Steve from Minecraft as their prospective date. Why is that? Is it because people these days are drawn to something other than just looks and physical attractiveness? What if all sorts of quirks are what’s hot today? This is something worth delving into even further.

Let’s look at the statistics here:

• 52% of the respondents would love to take a video game character on a date.
• A vast majority of the respondents — a whopping 71% — are male.
• When it comes to the genres, 75% of the respondents picked characters from action-adventure games and shooters.
• The hottest characters? Well, aside from Steve from Minecraft who got the most swipes right (very funny, guys!), various main characters of the Witcher series — Geralt, Yennefer, Triss — were named as such. The list includes Chun Li from Street Fighter, Peter Parker from Marvel’s Spider-Man, Mario, and a couple of notable personas from Cyberpunk 2077. Interestingly enough, Johnny Silverhand ended up last.

Does summer make people more sentimental? It sure does. As you can see from the results, many gamers yearn for times long gone, reliving the virtual adventures of the past, either through reminiscing or returning to old school games of the 80s and the 90s. They’re also keen on fantasizing about dating their favorite video game characters, some attractive, others quirky and lovable. This is something that definitely deserves more exploring!

About G2A.COM

G2A.COM is the world’s largest marketplace for digital products where over 25 million people have already made their purchases. Customers can choose from more than 75,000 digital products — video games, DLCs, in-game items, gift cards and software — offered by sellers from around the world. The platform is a part of an entire ecosystem featuring various products and services, including G2A Plus, a membership program offering discounts on the platform and other benefits.

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