The Pokémon video game franchise is one of the most timeless. Over the years, its audience of all ages grows and renews itself. Many young people join these new stories, while others have been in this world since the ’90s.
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet it is giving a lot to talk about. We recently told you that these video games became the best-selling exclusive launch in history, registering more than 10 million units in its first 3 days. Of course, this shows that the franchise is more alive than ever and that they have a loyal audience that does not stop growing and renewing itself.
What Pokemon is a timeless video game franchise, known to draw crowds of all ages. However, many of these games are usually aimed at a younger audience or are thought to be entirely for minors, despite the fact that many of their audiences are older.
Why is that thought? Without going too far and to give an example, it can be seen that most of the protagonists of the games are usually young people who do not exceed 16 years of age. This not only serves to maintain the identity of the series and continuity in the game, but also helps players (of approximately the same age) to identify with the character.
The protagonists of Pokemon they are designed based on a cultural narrative in Japan, in which the “young hero” prevails. But Pokemon it’s not the only popular anime and game to use a similar narrative style. Some examples are franchises like My Hero Academia, Digimon, Demon Slayeramong others.
However, it is not news that many of the people who play video games of Pokemon they are of legal age. Let’s not forget, after all, that the first game in the franchise came out in 1996, so anyone who started playing in that year (and continues to do so to this day) is already easily over 30.
Of course, as the story progresses and the games continue to come out, the audience is renewed. On the one hand, new players arrive (both under 18 years of age and older), while on the other we see those who remain faithful to Pokémon, Nintendo and Game Freak with the passage of time.
Many older gamers believe (and hope) that games of Pokemon grow with them, be it in classic mechanics, themes in the story and their characters. However, as we said above, these video games aim more than anything at children’s audiences and to continue adding new members to their already wide and loyal audience.
Let’s go to the numbers
While it is unknown exactly how many adult fans make up the franchise’s audience pokemon, nintendo had communicated (in 2017) that, according to your data“the proportion of players between the ages of 20 and 30” had increased to Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon compared to previous titles for Nintendo 3DS.
Using demographic information about the US smartphone app market from SurveyMonkeyIntelligencein 2016 this metrics team took an in-depth look at the demographics of Pokémon GO. Regarding the age of their players, they reported that, although the majority were under 30 years of age, the audience changed over the months.
Back then, people aged 30-49 accounted for 30% of all gamers. Pokémon Go. According to the SurveyMonkey Intelligence graph that we leave you below, the predominant age of users is between 18 and 29 years, with 43%. People between the ages of 13 and 17 represent 20% of the players, while those over 50 represent 8%.
Similar to the previous data (made in the same year), newzoo also shared data on the ages of the players of Pokémon Go. The information they presented focuses on four key countries: the US, UK, Germany and France. When talking about the ages of the players, the highest percentage (26%) belonged to users between 21 and 35 years old. Here we leave the graph:
We have another study (but this time from 2019) of SpringerLink which highlights that the players of Pokémon Go Those who gambled the most were between the ages of 21 and 25, with 32.6%. This group was followed by users between the ages of 26 and 30 (with 25.4%), those under 20 (with 18%) and people between 31 and 35 years (with 11.1%). Data for this study was collected through a web-based survey directed at participants from around the world who were gamers of Pokémon Go or that they had played at the time.
A more recent case (from this year) we see in LEVVVEL. Here, most of the players are between 21 and 30 years old. To be more specific, 32.6% of the people who play are between the ages of 21-25, while 25.4% are players between the ages of 26-30. These groups are followed by those between 31-35 (11.1%) and those under 20 (18%). The last group (36-40+) represents 12.8%.
Changing the game, one 2016 survey to find out how old the players were Pokemon sun and moon revealed that 30.75% of the users were between 22 and 25 years old. This group is followed by people between 18 and 21 years old with 23.21% and those between 26 and 29 years old with 22.22%.
On the other hand, in 2019 Media Create, a Japanese company that tracks sales data, showed charts on the ages of the player base as the years (and games) passed. For Pokemon Diamond/Pearl (which came out over 15 years ago), the player base was quite young: under 12 years old.
For Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver (which came out 13 years ago), the player base ranges from 7 to 24 years old. Pokémon Black and White (which came out 12 years ago), one of the largest groups was between the ages of 19 and 24. This growth makes it clear that fans move from one game to another as the franchise (and users) age.
We will have to wait a little longer to have more data on the ages of its players and see how old the ones who play the game the most are. Pokemon Scarlet & Violet.