To look at the potential for streaming games, DFC Intelligence commissioned a quick survey of 1,000 gamers. We used our panel of younger core gamers from a global pool (not including Asia). Among the many questions, we asked was what general video subscription services gamers currently use. Not surprisingly Netflix came out as a clear leader. Music service Spotify also did very well among this demographic.
When gauging the potential for subscription services an important metric is what services consumers are currently using. This indicates how willing a consumer is to pay for a subscription. Gamers by and large are willing to pay for subscription services. Both Netflix and Spotify came out strong. Spotify is a subscription music service so having 42% with a current subscription or intent to get one was quite strong (13% had canceled their subscription).
If you measure satisfaction by the ratio of consumers that have canceled service, Netflix and Spotify come out on top. Of the total of current and canceled subscribers only 19% of Netflix users had canceled and 32% of Spotify. For services like PlayStation Vue and YouTube Premium not only was the subscriber base much lower, but the cancellation rate was over 40%.
As we have mentioned, we have doubts about Google’s ability to charge a premium for its services. The high cancelation rate among YouTube Premium is an example of a data point that gives us pause. Google has high consumer perception among gamers, but much of that we feel is because they offer so many free services.
We emphasize that our survey was specifically targeted towards an international gamer audience mainly in the 13 to 30-year-old demographic. This means the number of casual and console gamers are not strongly represented. When we do a survey targeted towards a market like the United States the results will be quite different.
DFC conducts regular consumer surveys to take the pulse of the industry. As an important disclaimer, we caution that these surveys should always be taken with a grain of salt. When doing forecasts, the number one source of data will always be actual sales, usage and revenue information. Surveys are just one of many data points used to build analysis.
In this survey, an example of a data point where we advise caution is the number of Spotify subscribers. Spotify offers a free service. Our goal was to ask about paid subscriptions, but many respondents may not have properly understood the question. Thus it becomes a good indication of interest in Spotify, but not necessarily actually paid subscriptions.
In the coming weeks, we will be presenting some more results from our surveys. If you would like more information about these surveys or other DFC Intelligence products, please fill out this contact form.
To see a summary of this survey go here.
