From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/millions-of-young-adults-are-walking-away-from-gaming-and-here-s-why/ar-AA21pUSB?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=69e934e79d674dccbb40aaf9e8bb2eb0&ei=56

We know this sounds dramatic. What do you mean, swaths of young adults
are quitting gaming altogether? We promise, this isn’t as dramatic as it sounds. While younger adults are pulling back on certain types of
gaming, there’s still a massive group of people still wired in. In fact, over 205 million Americans aged five to 90 play video games regularly,
with 60% of adults playing every single week.

So what’s happening with the young adults? Well, it comes down to money.
U.S consumers aged 18 to 24 spend 25% less money on video game products
in April 2025 than they did the previous year. What this tells us isn’t
that it’s about the quality of the games, it’s more so that games aren’t the epicentre of how young folks like to spend their time.

The Budget Pressure

The clearest evidence starts with spending. In that same Circana
snapshot covered by GameSpot, overall spending by 18-to-24-year-olds was
down about 13% year over year, but games took a harder hit than several
other tracked categories. That makes sense, really. Between the price of games, consoles, and membership subscriptions, it’s difficult to justify
the expense if it’s not your favorite way to pass the time.

The bigger economic backdrop doesn't exactly make leisure spending feel carefree, either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the unemployment
rate for Americans ages 16 to 24 was 10.8 percent in July 2025, and the employment-population ratio for that group was 53.1 percent, down from
54.5 percent a year earlier. For people just getting started at work, or trying to hang onto unstable early-career jobs, that kind of picture can
make every nonessential purchase feel a little heavier.

Debt pressure adds another layer. The U.S. Department of Education said collections on defaulted federal student loans resumed on May 5, 2025,
ending a long pause, and a St. Louis Fed analysis found that the share
of Americans ages 20 to 64 who were 30 days delinquent on credit card
payments reached 12.1 percent in the first quarter of 2025. Those aren't youth-only figures, and they don't tell us why any one person skipped a
new release. They do, though, fit the broader mood: leisure spending is
much more stressful than it was a few years ago.

Gaming Isn’t For Everyone

Time matters almost as much as money here, maybe more for some people.
ESA's 2025 numbers show that gaming isn’t a youth-specific habit, with
half of American players now 35 or older. The old image of young
adulthood as endless free evenings for grinding levels, chasing unlocks,
and sinking hours into whatever everyone else was playing just doesn't
fit as neatly anymore.

Public opinion helps fill in what market data can't fully capture. In
online discussions about quitting or cutting back on games, people keep circling back to the same themes: work, rising costs, less free time,
and the feeling that gaming had become a mindless default instead of
something they were actively choosing.

What comes through in those conversations isn't outrage, exactly. It's
more like a recalculation. A hobby can be fun and still lose ground once people start lining it up against sleep, exercise, side income,
relationships, or even an evening that doesn't leave them feeling glued
to another screen. Read that way, the pullback looks less like some anti-gaming crusade and more like a very normal adult reshuffling of priorities.

Other Digital Habits

That said, another part of this is that young adults aren't necessarily logging off. They're just spreading their attention around differently.
Sensor Tower's State of Mobile Gaming 2025 report says mobile game
in-app purchase revenue grew 4% in 2024, while time spent rose 8% and
sessions increased 12%. So quick, low-friction play is still doing just
fine, even while premium gaming purchases drop.

The wider market tells a similar story. Newzoo's Global Games Market
Report 2025 projects $188.8 billion in game revenues and 3.6 billion
players worldwide, while also noting that console is the fastest-growing platform, while mobile growth is slowing in mature markets. What this
tells us is that the gaming industry is by no means going under. Gaming
is still enormous. It's just not a simple story anymore where young
players automatically keep spending more every year.

Then there's the industry itself, which hasn't exactly been radiating stability. GDC's 2026 State of the Game Industry says 28% of surveyed professionals were laid off in the past two years, and half said their
current or most recent employer had conducted layoffs in the past 12
months. That doesn't directly tell us what consumers will do next, but
it does help explain why some players seem less willing to treat every
major release like a must-buy event.

The safest takeaway is pretty straightforward. Public evidence supports
the idea that many young adults are spending less on games, thinking
harder about the time they put into them, and making more room for other priorities. Young adults aren’t leaving gaming for good. What the data
can support, and support well, is that gaming no longer gets an
automatic pass from a generation dealing with tighter money, busier
lives, and plenty of other ways to spend a night.
--
I've done good in this world. Now I'm tired and just want to be a cranky
dirty old man.

--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

Dimensional Traveler wrote:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/millions-of-young-adults-are-walking-away-from-gaming-and-here-s-why/ar-AA21pUSB?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=69e934e79d674dccbb40aaf9e8bb2eb0&ei=56

We know this sounds dramatic. What do you mean, swaths of young adults
are quitting gaming altogether? We promise, this isn’t as dramatic as it sounds. While younger adults are pulling back on certain types of
gaming, there’s still a massive group of people still wired in. In fact, over 205 million Americans aged five to 90 play video games regularly,
with 60% of adults playing every single week.

So what’s happening with the young adults? Well, it comes down to money. U.S consumers aged 18 to 24 spend 25% less money on video game products
in April 2025 than they did the previous year. What this tells us isn’t that it’s about the quality of the games, it’s more so that games aren’t
the epicentre of how young folks like to spend their time.

The Budget Pressure

The clearest evidence starts with spending. In that same Circana
snapshot covered by GameSpot, overall spending by 18-to-24-year-olds was down about 13% year over year, but games took a harder hit than several other tracked categories. That makes sense, really. Between the price of games, consoles, and membership subscriptions, it’s difficult to justify the expense if it’s not your favorite way to pass the time.

The bigger economic backdrop doesn't exactly make leisure spending feel carefree, either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the unemployment
rate for Americans ages 16 to 24 was 10.8 percent in July 2025, and the employment-population ratio for that group was 53.1 percent, down from
54.5 percent a year earlier. For people just getting started at work, or trying to hang onto unstable early-career jobs, that kind of picture can make every nonessential purchase feel a little heavier.

Debt pressure adds another layer. The U.S. Department of Education said collections on defaulted federal student loans resumed on May 5, 2025, ending a long pause, and a St. Louis Fed analysis found that the share
of Americans ages 20 to 64 who were 30 days delinquent on credit card payments reached 12.1 percent in the first quarter of 2025. Those aren't youth-only figures, and they don't tell us why any one person skipped a
new release. They do, though, fit the broader mood: leisure spending is
much more stressful than it was a few years ago.

Gaming Isn’t For Everyone

Time matters almost as much as money here, maybe more for some people.
ESA's 2025 numbers show that gaming isn’t a youth-specific habit, with half of American players now 35 or older. The old image of young
adulthood as endless free evenings for grinding levels, chasing unlocks,
and sinking hours into whatever everyone else was playing just doesn't
fit as neatly anymore.

Public opinion helps fill in what market data can't fully capture. In
online discussions about quitting or cutting back on games, people keep circling back to the same themes: work, rising costs, less free time,
and the feeling that gaming had become a mindless default instead of something they were actively choosing.

What comes through in those conversations isn't outrage, exactly. It's
more like a recalculation. A hobby can be fun and still lose ground once people start lining it up against sleep, exercise, side income, relationships, or even an evening that doesn't leave them feeling glued
to another screen. Read that way, the pullback looks less like some anti-gaming crusade and more like a very normal adult reshuffling of priorities.

Other Digital Habits

That said, another part of this is that young adults aren't necessarily logging off. They're just spreading their attention around differently. Sensor Tower's State of Mobile Gaming 2025 report says mobile game
in-app purchase revenue grew 4% in 2024, while time spent rose 8% and sessions increased 12%. So quick, low-friction play is still doing just fine, even while premium gaming purchases drop.

The wider market tells a similar story. Newzoo's Global Games Market
Report 2025 projects $188.8 billion in game revenues and 3.6 billion
players worldwide, while also noting that console is the fastest-growing platform, while mobile growth is slowing in mature markets. What this
tells us is that the gaming industry is by no means going under. Gaming
is still enormous. It's just not a simple story anymore where young
players automatically keep spending more every year.

Then there's the industry itself, which hasn't exactly been radiating stability. GDC's 2026 State of the Game Industry says 28% of surveyed professionals were laid off in the past two years, and half said their current or most recent employer had conducted layoffs in the past 12
months. That doesn't directly tell us what consumers will do next, but
it does help explain why some players seem less willing to treat every
major release like a must-buy event.

The safest takeaway is pretty straightforward. Public evidence supports
the idea that many young adults are spending less on games, thinking
harder about the time they put into them, and making more room for other priorities. Young adults aren’t leaving gaming for good. What the data
can support, and support well, is that gaming no longer gets an
automatic pass from a generation dealing with tighter money, busier
lives, and plenty of other ways to spend a night.

Usually I command total respect in the other newsgroups. But this guy
decided to post exactly the same article as me to make it clear that he doesn't read what I write. Most of these guys have been willfully
ignoring me for months. They're like % and his back scene emails telling everybody to ignore me. However, it's reached new heights with this guy,
who posts exactly the same thing I just did. I thought you could use a
few lessons on disrespect, Brennus. This is the beginning of my Master
Class which I will present to you, my greatest student. I'd like you to
meet Zaghadka here, who is the Great Leader in c.s.i.p.g.action behind
the Great Disrespect, as they call it in email.

What did I do to deserve such awful treatment?

I had a sex sandwich with Zaghadka's wife.

Wait that's not the right punchline--
--
Pharaoh was so pleased with Hadad that he gave him a
sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes, in marriage.
The sister of Tahpenes bore him a son named Genubath,
whom Tahpenes brought up in the royal palace. There
Genubath lived with Pharaoh’s own children.
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

phoenix wrote:

Dimensional Traveler wrote:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/millions-of-young-adults-are-walking-away-from-gaming-and-here-s-why/ar-AA21pUSB?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=69e934e79d674dccbb40aaf9e8bb2eb0&ei=56


We know this sounds dramatic. What do you mean, swaths of young adults
are quitting gaming altogether? We promise, this isn’t as dramatic as
it sounds. While younger adults are pulling back on certain types of
gaming, there’s still a massive group of people still wired in. In
fact, over 205 million Americans aged five to 90 play video games
regularly, with 60% of adults playing every single week.

So what’s happening with the young adults? Well, it comes down to
money. U.S consumers aged 18 to 24 spend 25% less money on video game
products in April 2025 than they did the previous year. What this
tells us isn’t that it’s about the quality of the games, it’s more so >> that games aren’t the epicentre of how young folks like to spend their
time.

The Budget Pressure

The clearest evidence starts with spending. In that same Circana
snapshot covered by GameSpot, overall spending by 18-to-24-year-olds
was down about 13% year over year, but games took a harder hit than
several other tracked categories. That makes sense, really. Between
the price of games, consoles, and membership subscriptions, it’s
difficult to justify the expense if it’s not your favorite way to pass
the time.

The bigger economic backdrop doesn't exactly make leisure spending
feel carefree, either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the
unemployment rate for Americans ages 16 to 24 was 10.8 percent in July
2025, and the employment-population ratio for that group was 53.1
percent, down from 54.5 percent a year earlier. For people just
getting started at work, or trying to hang onto unstable early-career
jobs, that kind of picture can make every nonessential purchase feel a
little heavier.

Debt pressure adds another layer. The U.S. Department of Education
said collections on defaulted federal student loans resumed on May 5,
2025, ending a long pause, and a St. Louis Fed analysis found that the
share of Americans ages 20 to 64 who were 30 days delinquent on credit
card payments reached 12.1 percent in the first quarter of 2025. Those
aren't youth-only figures, and they don't tell us why any one person
skipped a new release. They do, though, fit the broader mood: leisure
spending is much more stressful than it was a few years ago.

Gaming Isn’t For Everyone

Time matters almost as much as money here, maybe more for some people.
ESA's 2025 numbers show that gaming isn’t a youth-specific habit, with
half of American players now 35 or older. The old image of young
adulthood as endless free evenings for grinding levels, chasing
unlocks, and sinking hours into whatever everyone else was playing
just doesn't fit as neatly anymore.

Public opinion helps fill in what market data can't fully capture. In
online discussions about quitting or cutting back on games, people
keep circling back to the same themes: work, rising costs, less free
time, and the feeling that gaming had become a mindless default
instead of something they were actively choosing.

What comes through in those conversations isn't outrage, exactly. It's
more like a recalculation. A hobby can be fun and still lose ground
once people start lining it up against sleep, exercise, side income,
relationships, or even an evening that doesn't leave them feeling
glued to another screen. Read that way, the pullback looks less like
some anti-gaming crusade and more like a very normal adult reshuffling
of priorities.

Other Digital Habits

That said, another part of this is that young adults aren't
necessarily logging off. They're just spreading their attention around
differently. Sensor Tower's State of Mobile Gaming 2025 report says
mobile game in-app purchase revenue grew 4% in 2024, while time spent
rose 8% and sessions increased 12%. So quick, low-friction play is
still doing just fine, even while premium gaming purchases drop.

The wider market tells a similar story. Newzoo's Global Games Market
Report 2025 projects $188.8 billion in game revenues and 3.6 billion
players worldwide, while also noting that console is the
fastest-growing platform, while mobile growth is slowing in mature
markets. What this tells us is that the gaming industry is by no means
going under. Gaming is still enormous. It's just not a simple story
anymore where young players automatically keep spending more every year.

Then there's the industry itself, which hasn't exactly been radiating
stability. GDC's 2026 State of the Game Industry says 28% of surveyed
professionals were laid off in the past two years, and half said their
current or most recent employer had conducted layoffs in the past 12
months. That doesn't directly tell us what consumers will do next, but
it does help explain why some players seem less willing to treat every
major release like a must-buy event.

The safest takeaway is pretty straightforward. Public evidence
supports the idea that many young adults are spending less on games,
thinking harder about the time they put into them, and making more
room for other priorities. Young adults aren’t leaving gaming for
good. What the data can support, and support well, is that gaming no
longer gets an automatic pass from a generation dealing with tighter
money, busier lives, and plenty of other ways to spend a night.

Usually I command total respect in the other newsgroups. But this guy decided to post exactly the same article as me to make it clear that he doesn't read what I write. Most of these guys have been willfully
ignoring me for months. They're like % and his back scene emails telling everybody to ignore me. However, it's reached new heights with this guy,
who posts exactly the same thing I just did. I thought you could use a
few lessons on disrespect, Brennus. This is the beginning of my Master
Class which I will present to you, my greatest student. I'd like you to
meet Zaghadka here, who is the Great Leader in c.s.i.p.g.action behind
the Great Disrespect, as they call it in email.

What did I do to deserve such awful treatment?

I had a sex sandwich with Zaghadka's wife.

Wait that's not the right punchline--

The line "You had a sex sandwich with his wife and his sister the night
he was sent here" appears in the screenplay for the 1997 film Face/Off, written by Mike Werb and Michael Colleary. It is spoken to the character Castor Troy (played by Nicolas Cage) in reference to his actions,
highlighting his chaotic and provocative nature early in the film.
Contextual Details:
Scene: The dialogue occurs in the prison context.
Significance: It serves to illustrate the extreme personal offense
Castor Troy caused Sean Archer (John Travolta) before the face-swapping
plot begins.
The script is known for its intense, often over-the-top dialogue, which
this line exemplifies.

^^^^^^^ Look at AI hallucinate. It was to illustrate the extreme
personal offense Castor Troy caused Dubov, a fellow inmate in the prison.

If I play my cards right, I'll have Brennus hallucinating just like this.
--
Pharaoh was so pleased with Hadad that he gave him a
sister of his own wife, Queen Tahpenes, in marriage.
The sister of Tahpenes bore him a son named Genubath,
whom Tahpenes brought up in the royal palace. There
Genubath lived with Pharaoh’s own children.
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

phoenix wrote:

Dimensional Traveler wrote:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/millions-of-young-adults-are-walking-away-from-gaming-and-here-s-why/ar-AA21pUSB?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=69e934e79d674dccbb40aaf9e8bb2eb0&ei=56


We know this sounds dramatic. What do you mean, swaths of young adults
are quitting gaming altogether? We promise, this isn’t as dramatic as
it sounds. While younger adults are pulling back on certain types of
gaming, there’s still a massive group of people still wired in. In
fact, over 205 million Americans aged five to 90 play video games
regularly, with 60% of adults playing every single week.

So what’s happening with the young adults? Well, it comes down to
money. U.S consumers aged 18 to 24 spend 25% less money on video game
products in April 2025 than they did the previous year. What this
tells us isn’t that it’s about the quality of the games, it’s more so >> that games aren’t the epicentre of how young folks like to spend their
time.

The Budget Pressure

The clearest evidence starts with spending. In that same Circana
snapshot covered by GameSpot, overall spending by 18-to-24-year-olds
was down about 13% year over year, but games took a harder hit than
several other tracked categories. That makes sense, really. Between
the price of games, consoles, and membership subscriptions, it’s
difficult to justify the expense if it’s not your favorite way to pass
the time.

The bigger economic backdrop doesn't exactly make leisure spending
feel carefree, either. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said the
unemployment rate for Americans ages 16 to 24 was 10.8 percent in July
2025, and the employment-population ratio for that group was 53.1
percent, down from 54.5 percent a year earlier. For people just
getting started at work, or trying to hang onto unstable early-career
jobs, that kind of picture can make every nonessential purchase feel a
little heavier.

Debt pressure adds another layer. The U.S. Department of Education
said collections on defaulted federal student loans resumed on May 5,
2025, ending a long pause, and a St. Louis Fed analysis found that the
share of Americans ages 20 to 64 who were 30 days delinquent on credit
card payments reached 12.1 percent in the first quarter of 2025. Those
aren't youth-only figures, and they don't tell us why any one person
skipped a new release. They do, though, fit the broader mood: leisure
spending is much more stressful than it was a few years ago.

Gaming Isn’t For Everyone

Time matters almost as much as money here, maybe more for some people.
ESA's 2025 numbers show that gaming isn’t a youth-specific habit, with
half of American players now 35 or older. The old image of young
adulthood as endless free evenings for grinding levels, chasing
unlocks, and sinking hours into whatever everyone else was playing
just doesn't fit as neatly anymore.

Public opinion helps fill in what market data can't fully capture. In
online discussions about quitting or cutting back on games, people
keep circling back to the same themes: work, rising costs, less free
time, and the feeling that gaming had become a mindless default
instead of something they were actively choosing.

What comes through in those conversations isn't outrage, exactly. It's
more like a recalculation. A hobby can be fun and still lose ground
once people start lining it up against sleep, exercise, side income,
relationships, or even an evening that doesn't leave them feeling
glued to another screen. Read that way, the pullback looks less like
some anti-gaming crusade and more like a very normal adult reshuffling
of priorities.

Other Digital Habits

That said, another part of this is that young adults aren't
necessarily logging off. They're just spreading their attention around
differently. Sensor Tower's State of Mobile Gaming 2025 report says
mobile game in-app purchase revenue grew 4% in 2024, while time spent
rose 8% and sessions increased 12%. So quick, low-friction play is
still doing just fine, even while premium gaming purchases drop.

The wider market tells a similar story. Newzoo's Global Games Market
Report 2025 projects $188.8 billion in game revenues and 3.6 billion
players worldwide, while also noting that console is the
fastest-growing platform, while mobile growth is slowing in mature
markets. What this tells us is that the gaming industry is by no means
going under. Gaming is still enormous. It's just not a simple story
anymore where young players automatically keep spending more every year.

Then there's the industry itself, which hasn't exactly been radiating
stability. GDC's 2026 State of the Game Industry says 28% of surveyed
professionals were laid off in the past two years, and half said their
current or most recent employer had conducted layoffs in the past 12
months. That doesn't directly tell us what consumers will do next, but
it does help explain why some players seem less willing to treat every
major release like a must-buy event.

The safest takeaway is pretty straightforward. Public evidence
supports the idea that many young adults are spending less on games,
thinking harder about the time they put into them, and making more
room for other priorities. Young adults aren’t leaving gaming for
good. What the data can support, and support well, is that gaming no
longer gets an automatic pass from a generation dealing with tighter
money, busier lives, and plenty of other ways to spend a night.

Usually I command total respect in the other newsgroups. But this guy decided to post exactly the same article as me to make it clear that he doesn't read what I write. Most of these guys have been willfully
ignoring me for months. They're like % and his back scene emails telling everybody to ignore me. However, it's reached new heights with this guy,
who posts exactly the same thing I just did. I thought you could use a
few lessons on disrespect, Brennus. This is the beginning of my Master
Class which I will present to you, my greatest student. I'd like you to
meet Zaghadka here, who is the Great Leader in c.s.i.p.g.action behind
the Great Disrespect, as they call it in email.

What did I do to deserve such awful treatment?

I had a sex sandwich with Zaghadka's wife.

Wait that's not the right punchline--

appy nappy
--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action

On Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:26:22 -0700, Dimensional Traveler
<[email protected]> said this thing:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/millions-of-young-adults-are-walking-away-from-gaming-and-here-s-why/ar-AA21pUSB?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=69e934e79d674dccbb40aaf9e8bb2eb0&ei=56

We know this sounds dramatic. What do you mean, swaths of young adults
are quitting gaming altogether? We promise, this isn�t as dramatic as it >sounds. While younger adults are pulling back on certain types of
gaming, there�s still a massive group of people still wired in. In fact, >over 205 million Americans aged five to 90 play video games regularly,
with 60% of adults playing every single week.

So what�s happening with the young adults? Well, it comes down to money.
U.S consumers aged 18 to 24 spend 25% less money on video game products
in April 2025 than they did the previous year. What this tells us isn�t
that it�s about the quality of the games, it�s more so that games aren�t
the epicentre of how young folks like to spend their time.

I'm not sure that younger gamers are actually playing that much less.
AS the article itself says, the major evidence for this is that the
younger set is BUYING less; that they've spent 25% less money this
year than last. But buying =/= playing. You can, after all, still play
year-old games. And there are a lot more options for free games every
day. Plus, the younger set stick with the same games longer than do
their elders, as these games are seen as much as social settings as
they are gaming experiences. Add all that to rising prices and I think
its quite easy to get the impression that games have become less
important to the youngsters.

Which, again, the article acknowledges. The kids aren't playing less;
they're playing different. Mobile purchases are, in fact, up year over
year, and its mostly the kids who are buying. Which isn't surprising
given how often kids have their faces glued to their phones. They
might not be buying as many PC/console games but that doesn't mean
they aren't still playing video-games; it just means they aren't
limiting themselves to just those platforms. And they are STILL
playing consoles and PCs.

Kids aren't walking away from video gaming. They're playing as much or
more. They're just playing differently than how their elders play.
Which is cool.

--- Synchronet 3.21f-Linux NewsLink 1.2