Average amounts spent on games installed on PC

41% of gamers using personal computers pay for their games, which constitutes a decrease of 5 percentage points when compared to the results of Polish Gamers Research 2019. The share of the respondents who pay for expansions is maintained at the level of 27% in relation to the results for 2019. However, the price is still a sensitive issue. Currently, the prices of PC games in Poland are practically equal to the price level in Western Europe, which constitutes a problem for gamers and contributes to the decisions to purchase more expensive games for consoles. Additionally, AAA games for personal computers require much more expensive equipment than their console versions, which makes some of the mainstream gamers decide to play on consoles.

_{Chart 1 Base: Respondents playing specific types of games N=405
Have you ever paid a fee related to the following types of games?
Chart 2 Base: Respondents who have ever purchased a game N=165
How much do you usually spend for the games for your computer per purchase?
Chart 3 Base: Respondents who have ever purchased game add-ons N=111
How much do you usually spend for the game add-ons for your computer per purchase?}

In the Polish Gamers Research 2019, 21% of the gamers declared expenditures at the level from PLN 100 to 200. In 2020, that share increased to 26%, which proves that more gamers are willing to spend significant amounts. Unfortunately, simultaneously the share of gamers who were willing to spend more than PLN 200 on a PC game decreased from 7% in 2019 to 1% in 2020, which can be associated, among others, with the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, lockdown and the related careful consumption of more expensive goods.

In the case of expansions, an increase has been recorded for the expenditures of PLN 20-29 from 15% in 2019 to 20% in 2020, and in the brackets of PLN 10-19 from 8% in 2019 to 15% in 2020, which is similar to the situation from five years ago. The highest level of expenditures for expansions, over PLN 100, is maintained at the same level of 8% since 2019, which means that the current epidemic situation did not affect the consumer decisions of more affluent gamers. In 2015 and 2016, gamers willing to spend more than PLN 100 on an expansion constituted only 3%. However, a decrease of the expenditures by 3 percentage points has been observed in relation to 2019 for the brackets PLN 30-49 (19%) and PLN 50-99 (22%).

An uncertain future, growing unemployment and lockdown forced Poles not only to reorganise their lives, but also to consider their expenditures.