How do gamers buy gifts?

The first thing we wanted to find out in this survey is who our clients buy gifts for. It is tradition that the holidays are a time of giving gifts to family and close ones, but in contrast our clients stated that they majorly buy presents for their friends (40.5%). The second spot was taken by children (31%) – what’s more, we start to buy them video games as a gift more often, which may indicate a positive change in perception of this category by modern parents. What’s curious, this question allowed for picking more than one answer, meaning you could select two or more groups you will be buying gifts for, but a huge majority (over 80%) only picked one group – which may point to a trend that when buying gifts, we don’t do it for everyone we know and are in contact with, but only to a specific group chosen by us.

Next, we asked about the very interesting issue of a form of the gift bought – traditionally presents are understood as something wrapped in packing paper or packed inside a ribbon-tied box. However, the majority of gamers (48.5%) decide to buy gifts in a digital form, such as activation keys or gift cards – only 17.5% opt for mainly traditional, physical forms of presents. The rest settles for a mix of both.

We also found a very positive note in the responses to the question about the timing of gift-buying. Our respondents said that they majorly (60.6%) buy presents long before the holidays. It seems that even people who buy gifts mainly online want to avoid the panic of buying last-minute, although on the other hand, one in four people who gave an answer (25.8%) admit that they plan to buy gifts right before the due date. This may be because gifts in digital form, delivered right after the purchase are in a huge advantage compared to the physical ones: they don’t get stuck in post, the courier won’t be late etc.

The above are only a few interesting results of our survey, you can find all of them in the attached infographic.

The research was conducted in November-December 2022 on a group of 1500 people visiting G2A.COM.