Gamers Are Powering the Modern Geek Culture Economy

As the boundaries between gaming, media, and “offline” fandom continue to blur, gamers have stopped being passive content consumers. They are fueling vast economies of collectibles, stories, and social play. The link between gaming and wider culture isn’t just thematic, it’s financial. A survey by Big Games Machine found a direct correlation between time spent gaming and not just interest, but actual spending, on adjacent hobbies.

Gaming Platforms Shape Passions and Purchases

Big Games Machine partnered with a leading research agency to survey 1,016 active US gamers about how their play habits connect to the wider world of geek culture. While classic assumptions suggest core gamers stick to games alone, the data shows that today’s gaming audience is fueling and funding everything from collectibles and comics to cosplay and tabletop games.

The survey’s largest age bands were 25–34 (30%) and 35–44 (28%), but the cultural web it maps covers all ages. Ninety-two percent of respondents regularly play on at least two platforms, with mobile (82%) being the most universally used device. Yet dedicated PC, console, and “enthusiast” handheld users (like Steam Deck owners) are the ones who drive deeper engagement across the wider spectrum of geek culture, showing the strongest crossover into hobbies like books, comics, and toys.

• Gamers who play more than 20 hours a week are nearly twice as likely to buy sci-fi/fantasy literature, with 50% indicating strong interest, compared to 22% among those who play less than 4 hours.
• Engagement translates into purchases: investments in collectibles rise steadily with playtime, from 22% of light gamers to nearly 40% of heavy gamers.
• Niche activities like backing gaming-related Kickstarter campaigns are also inextricably linked to high gaming engagement, jumping from 3-5% among casuals to as much as 17% for the most devoted.

The report highlights a powerful but often-overlooked insight. What you play on strongly predicts your other interests and spending. Steam Deck owners, for instance, are standouts. 55% are avid readers of sci-fi/fantasy, 57% love anime, and a surprising 15% list Kickstarter as their top spending destination, compared to only 1% of all respondents. Nintendo Switch users are unique as well. 44% have bought toys or collectibles in the past year, handily beating the overall gamer average of 29%.

Xbox players represent another curiosity: they over-index on traditional tabletop games, with 13% naming them as their top spend, compared to the 4% all-gamer average. These patterns reveal a deepening granularity in “gamer” identity, with platforms acting as cultural signifiers just as much as technical choices.

Gender Insights and Geek Spending

Diving into gender, the survey confirmed both familiar patterns and surprising twists. Men’s interests lean toward print (39%) are comics and graphic novel fans (vs 27% of women), and 38% favor sci-fi/fantasy books vs 28%. Men are also more likely to list collectible card games as their main spend.

Women, meanwhile, lead the way in social gaming, spending 9% more than men in card/party game categories, and are twice as likely to make social gaming their highest spend. Notably, women also match or exceed men’s spending on collectibles, showing that fandom purchasing power is anything but monolithic.

Toys and collectibles are the single most-purchased geek category, with 29% of all respondents placing at least one transaction in the last year, outpacing even board games (27%) and card/party games (24%). These physical expressions of fandom are also the area where the average gamer spends the most cash. Still, there’s no clear “winner”: tabletop games, anime, comics, and even Kickstarter campaigns all capture a slice of the geek wallet, underscoring the vast diversity of fan interests.

Despite economic pressures, 39% of surveyed gamers said they expect to increase their spending on geek culture in the coming 12 months. Highly engaged gamers, as well as core platform users, are the most bullish. Men are slightly more likely than women to anticipate significant increases, but the optimism is broad-based, Geek culture is recession-resistant for this crowd.