Over lunch a while back, Nic Ducheneaut mentioned that he enjoys sci-fi movies and TV shows so much (and there’s so little sci-fi content these days) that he’ll watch any sci-fi content he comes across on streaming platforms regardless of the specific plot or subgenre (e.g., space travel, aliens, post-apocalyptic, dystopia).
And that got us to thinking about how sci-fi works in digital gaming as a thematic setting rather than a genre, and how the appeal of sci-fi might attract certain gamers and thus certain demographic groups and motivation profiles.
The Survey Examined Preferences By Genre
The Gamer Motivation Profile is a 5-minute survey that allows gamers to get a personalized report of their gaming motivations, and see how they compare with other gamers. Over 1.25 million gamers worldwide have taken this survey. The 12 motivations that are measured in our model were identified via statistical analysis of how gaming motivations cluster together.
See how you compare with other gamers. Take a 5-minute survey and get your Gamer Motivation Profile along with personalized game recommendations.
In an optional survey (N=13,296) we ran from February 2022 through October 2023 alongside the Gamer Motivation Profile, we invited gamers to complete an additional survey after they had looked at their profile results. In this survey, we first asked gamers to identify which game genres they most enjoy playing (up to 4 genres). Then, for each genre they selected, we asked them some genre-specific questions, including a question about the appeal of different thematic settings.
Sci-Fi is Much More Appealing to Older Gamers
In the survey, we asked about the appeal of Sci-Fi thematic settings in a variety of ways. In the section of the survey targeting Shooter genre fans (n=4,075), we asked about the appeal of Fantasy Sci-Fi (tends to have relaxed or unexplained scientific rules, e.g., Star Wars, The Fifth Element, Avatar) as well as Hard Sci-fi (tends to stay true to scientific rules/laws, e.g., The Martian, The Expanse, Ad Astra) as thematic settings specifically for Shooter games.
Overall, 50% of Shooter fans rated Hard Sci-Fi as “very” or “extremely” appealing for a Shooter game.
The difference between male (n=3,414), female (n=479), and non-binary (n=182) Shooter fans was quite small. About 20% of each gender cohort rated Hard Sci-Fi as “extremely” appealing.
Where we did see a large difference was in age. Shooter fans 35+ are more than twice as likely as Shooter fans age 13-17 to rate Hard Sci-Fi as “extremely” appealing.
Shooter fans 35+ are more than twice as likely as Shooter fans age 13-17 to rate Hard Sci-Fi as “extremely” appealing.
When we asked the mid-20s analyst on our team about his reaction to Sci-Fi, he mentioned that he thought about it as an old-school genre with its dominance and popularity back in the 80s (e.g., Terminator, Alien, RoboCop, Star Wars) and 90s (e.g., The Matrix, Men in Black, Jurassic Park) when the current 35+ crowd would have been teenagers. He associates Sci-Fi with the past, and perhaps Sci-Fi appeals to Nic and me partly because of that nostalgia.
These Gender and Age Patterns Are The Same for Hard Sci-Fi and Fantasy Sci-Fi
What we’ve seen for Hard Sci-Fi also applies to Fantasy Sci-Fi. Overall, there’s a slightly higher appeal for Fantasy Sci-Fi (64% rated it as “very” or “extremely” appealing compared to Hard Sci-Fi). But the gender and age effects are the same. There’s a very noticeable age cohort difference, especially among those who rated Fantasy Sci-Fi as “extremely appealing”, but the gender differences are quite small—note that there’s a smaller sample size for non-binary gamers (n=182), so their trends are less robust.
The Age Trend Extends Beyond the Shooter Genre
We’ve been looking solely at Shooter genre fans so far. In the survey, we had a different section for Strategy genre fans (n=3,891) where we also asked them about the appeal of Sci-Fi. Of note, there’s only a small overlap of respondents between the two sections: of the 4,075 respondents in the Shooter genre section and the 3,891 respondents in the Strategy section, there’s only an overlap of 746 respondents (~20% overlap). So we’re largely looking at different pools of gamers when we get to the Strategy genre section, but similar trends appear.
58% of Strategy genre fans rated Sci-Fi as a “very” or “extremely” appealing thematic setting for a Strategy game. Here among Strategy genre fans, we do find a strong gender difference in terms of the appeal of Sci-Fi. Male Strategy genre fans are about twice as likely to rate Sci-Fi as an “extremely” appealing thematic setting compared to female Strategy genre fans (31% vs. 15%).
The age effect is consistent though; older gamers (especially those 35+) are much more likely to rate Sci-Fi as an “extremely” appealing thematic setting for a Strategy game. This suggests that the Sci-Fi age trend is the more stable, cross-genre effect whereas gender differences depend on the specific genre.
The same is true for Sci-Fi among Strategy genre fans.
But for Hard Sci-Fi among Shooter genre fans, the age effect was indeed entirely driven by men. We see the strong age effect for men especially in the “extremely” appealing ratings, whereas there isn’t a clear trend in the responses among female gamers.
The Motivation Profile of Sci-Fi Fans Depends on the Genre and Type of Sci-Fi
We then looked into what gaming motivations correlate with the appeal of Sci-Fi. In the table below, we show only the motivations with correlations of .10 or higher, with correlations of .15 or higher bolded. And because we know that the appeal of Sci-Fi is correlated with age, we controlled for age when calculating the correlations–i.e., the correlations below have parceled out the expected correlations between gaming motivations and older gamers.
The appeal of Sci-Fi most consistently correlates with Fantasy (being someone else, somewhere else).
Across the 3 variations of Sci-Fi we asked about, all 3 correlated with Fantasy (being someone else, somewhere else)—the more highly a genre fan rated the appeal of Sci-Fi, the higher they scored on Fantasy.
But beyond this, the other motivation correlations depended on the specific type of Sci-Fi and the specific genre. So for example, Sci-Fi in Strategy had the strongest correlations with Destruction (blowing things up) and Strategy (thinking and planning ahead), while Fantasy Sci-Fi in Shooters had the strongest correlations with Story (deep narrative, interesting NPCs) and Design (avatar/gear customization).
It’s more obvious that gaming genres have motivation profiles; for example, fans of Shooters score higher on Destruction and Excitement. But it’s probably less obvious that thematic settings can also have motivation profiles. Moreover, the motivation profiles of thematic settings can also vary depending on the specific subgenre and the genre in question; they may be more unstable and colored by shared cultural and historical associations compared with genres.
The Alignment of Genre and Thematic Setting
This of course raises the issue of potential alignments and misalignments between genre and thematic settings. When genre and thematic setting profiles misalign, a game may draw in players who are poorly matched with the specific features and mechanics of the game. For example, a Sci-Fi Strategy game draws in gamers who prefer deeper strategic complexity, but these gamers are less likely to stay engaged with a game that leans towards the lighter/luck-based side of strategy. And at the same time, the Sci-Fi setting would be less likely to appeal to the exact gamers who do prefer lighter strategic gameplay.
When genre and thematic setting profiles misalign, a game may draw in players who are poorly matched with the specific features and mechanics of the game.
What Do You Think?
- Are you a fan of Sci-Fi in gaming? And how do you feel about the quality and prevalence of Sci-Fi in contemporary gaming?
- Do you agree with our explanation for why Sci-Fi is more popular with older gamers? Or do you think it’s something else?
- Are there thematic settings that you like so much you would play the game regardless of the genre it’s in? Or are there thematic settings you avoid like the plague even if it’s in a genre you like?
- Are there other topics you’d like to see us explore in future surveys and blog posts?
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This is fascinating, thanks Dr. Yee and team! I’m wondering if you looked Sci-Fi preferences by gender at all.
I’m glad that I’m subscribed to the newsletter. As someone who prefers strategy games over action games, it’s interesting older gamers prefer hard sci-fi compared to younger gamers. A part of it might be due to nostalgia for sci-fi in the 80s and 90s. Even games like Stellaris feel like a hodgepodge of different types of sci-fi tropes. I’ve been reading a lot more sci-fi and science books this year, and while I don’t love the genre (a lot of it focuses on explaining how the science and tech works instead of more interpersonal and heart-to-heart stuff) I can like and appreciate it.
I’m a bigger fan of fantasy. I would love to see a future post or survey focusing on that.
Huh. I’m actually curious why (or if) sci-fi fandom skews older. We did have a lot of good sci-fi in the 80s and 90s. Is reality in the 2000s too dystopian to believe in a future?
There were good sci-fi series after the 90s. They got out of fashion with Hollywood for several reasons, not the least of which was the rise of the toxic fandom. On tv sci-fi kept going a while longer until it was pushed aside by superheroes.
Stories in the 90s already were pretty dystopian. Realism was the new buzzword,which was commonly understood to mean grimdark. Without real understanding that the later only worked for certain types of war games but generally made for terrible storytelling.
I wonder if it’s partially due to the fact that a lot of newer sci-fi gaming titles are either giant MMO games or franchise-associated games. Destiny and Marvel games abound, but there’s not that many new and genuinely exciting sci-fi games. There are exceptions of course – Outer Wilds was very exciting to people – but I tend to think the franchise-ification of major media has negative consequences for sci-fi especially.
Themes go in and out of fashion.
I have noticed that a lot of sci-fi referenced here is space-themed, and that seems to be what most people think of when they hear “sci-fi”. But I think there is a lot of potential for other sci-fi or sci-fi-adjacent themes that are still under-explored.
I think it’s just that the 35+ cohort grew up in the tech boom era with unprecedented and visible scientific progress – the invention of the internet, mobile devices, and all sorts of other consumer tech products – whereas for teenagers nowdays it’s just their daily life and we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns with tech progress and the pitfalls of unbridled scientific progress are more apparent (destruction of entire nations for resources to build tech products, climate catastrophe, tech “innovations” that are just for the sake of innovation and don’t actually provide value and improve quality of life, the wanton disregard of the tech sector of ethical and humanitarian values such as the Nimbus Project, exploitation of underpaid workers globally, mass layoffs in the gaming industry after a year of record-breaking releases and profits, etc etc). Culturally there’s much less of the wide-eyed sense of wonder at scientific progress, and the zeitgeist is much more towards the dystopian aspect of tech progress (see: the popularity of Black Mirror). To teens nowadays, their everyday lives already involves much more interesting and advanced tech than the simplistic sci-fi tales popular in the 80s and 90s.
While the aesthetics of the popular conception of sci-fi may be out of fashion, sci-fi as a genre itself has a lot of exciting things to say that are relevant to younger audiences, but I often find them more in the literary realm (some of my fave works include Ted Chiang’s entire oeuvre and Ancillary Justice). There are few good sci-fi games, and the ones that are are usually in the indie genre (one of my faves is Christine Love’s Hate Plus) – mainstream ones usually have really dated sci-fi trappings like one of my favorite gaming series ever, X-Com, which is just cheesy sci-fi tropes with the usual glorification of military and imperialism.
That said, one of the most popular games in the world right now is Mihoyo’s Honkai: Star Rail, which is a spacefaring sci-fi involving travel to a variety of different worlds, and is very popular with the youths it seems. It IS interesting that the concept involves traveling to a lot of different universe with different aesthetic – like the first one is more of a steampunk world – so while the game itself is sci-fi themed, I think it goes to show that traditional sci-fi aesthetics themselves are perhaps not diverse enough to be interesting to a young audience and so it needs to be supplemented with other more interesting aesthetics.
Mihoyo does do constant player surveys and has a lot of data to draw on, so if they made their next big game after Genshin a sci-fi game, then that goes to show that there’s still a huge demand for sci-fi games at least within their existing player base – perhaps just not the same kind of classic sci-fi that older millennials and gen x grew up with.
[…] Quantic Foundry – aka the Nick Yee-backed analytics company that’s most well-known for its Gamer Motivation Model – has shared some responses from an optional survey run between February 2022 through October 2023, which has some interesting results when it comes to a game set in a sci-fi setting. […]
I’m a 35 male. I like Science-fiction, somewhat (with Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 and Star Wars: The old Republic and Rise of nations: rise of legends (steampunk)), but otherwise… I’m not a fan of the shooter genre (I’m more into strategy, fantasy and history), so Bioshock was not my cup of tea (too stressful).
After, I’m an individual, so I don’t know if my experience is relevant.
I’m a huge fan of making interesting choices in a game, but I dislike high difficulty in gameplay. A too high requirement is also a no (I gave up on The Wither 3 for the moment. The horror genre is also difficult to handlle to me.
This might just be my perspective, but I think that Hard Sci-fi is harder to pull off in a way that feels enjoyable/entertaining compared to Fantasy Sci-fi, because you’re significantly more constrained with regard to what is possibly to do in this space and who would be able to participate in it
If I can give you an example of what I mean, I think that this is at least a contributing part of why Starfield seems for so many to be a ‘downgrade’ compared to Skyrim – of course, there’s a lot more there than just the change of setting: The Outer Worlds by comparison met a far better reception and one could say it’s just a result of the differences in approach between Bethesda and Obsidian as developers
But even so, I’d argue that there are comparatively fewer successful Hard Sci-fi games, shooters or otherwise, than their Fantasy Sci-fi equivalents because the latter has a freer hand to implement player possibilities than the former; at the least, this is the perspective of a early 30s typically male gamer who has some interest in Sci-fi as an interesting genre of setting but is not specifically a particular fan of it compared to other setting genres