Over USD 8 billion in sales, more than 316 million users, 200 million active paying consumers, and a 5% growth in the number of players per year – this is what the online gaming industry looks like in Latin America. But how to reach all these highly engaged, digitised consumers? The answer is in the payment experience you create for them.
For the majority (39%) of LATAM gamers, the inability to pay with their preferred payment method is the number one reason why they abandon a purchase at the checkout stage. This is just one of the discoveries we made after talking to over 2,200 gamers from Latin America’s top six markets – Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, and Peru, in order of sales volume.
Based on the survey answers – and on our almost two decades of expertise as the leading local payment provider for the online gaming segment – we have just released our latest white paper, The payment habits of Latin American gamers: Leveraging payment method strategy to unlock Latam’s gaming industry, in partnership with PCMI - Payments and Commerce Market Intelligence, a division of Americas Market Intelligence (AMI), and a long-time partner of PagSeguro.
In the study, we unfold how gamers prefer to pay, what are their favourite types of purchase, the discount and purchase incentives they value the most, the differences in payment and purchasing habits for each gaming audience, the importance of localisation, the rise of pay-to-earn, and so much more.
Here are some of our discoveries, which only highlight the fundamental importance of the payments strategy for businesses to succeed: for 25%-34% (depending on the country) of Latin American gamers, having their payment quickly confirmed is the main reason why they will choose a payment method over another. However, only 13% of Brazilian gamers mention Pix as their favourite method for payment for gaming purchases – which underlines that most gaming merchants still don’t offer Pix to their Brazilian customers.
For those that do, the results are highly positive: among our own gaming merchants, using PagSeguro to be able to offer Pix, it quickly ramped up to more than 50% of their total payment volume.
Gaming is a wide community, with a consumer base that is as diverse as the game titles themselves. From casual mobile games to sandbox phenomena and complex narratives, games reach an ever more varied audience: the average Latin American gamer is a 30+ year old male, middle class or higher, but this profile is constantly evolving.
Women are more and more part of the gaming culture, and already represent 44% of all gamers in Latin America. Average spend per week is closely correlated with socioeconomic status – higher-class Latin Americans spend two to four times more than lower-class gamers –, but especially mobile gaming is an entry point for many gamers from around the region, even lower-class ones, since mobile devices are much more accessible than a PC or console that has the power to run the latest games.
66% of LATAM gamers have made a game-related purchase in the last six months; they are a highly engaged audience, with 50% being ’frequent purchasers who make a purchase at least once a month’. Even though mobile attracts more players, the highest average tickets come from console gamers – not only do they tend to be higher-class, but they also spend more on game titles.
All of that – average ticket, channel through which the purchase is being made, where the gamer plays – impacts their payment preferences. As we dive deeper into the findings of the white paper, merchants should understand the finer nuances of the purchasing experience to better support their customers, whenever and wherever they are buying. What online gaming can teach other industries
Online gaming is an innovative segment by nature, with a consumer base that is enthusiastic about technology. Gamers demand the latest and the best in their gaming experiences – and this goes much further than expecting cutting-edge graphics and outstanding game play; it includes everything related to gaming and paying for it. Be it looking for new games and expansions, be it shopping for character outfits, gaming currencies, health, and strength items, they want their purchases available to use as soon as possible, to be able to pay with their preferred method, and to receive the agile, flexible, secure experience they demand.
So, how can professionals from other segments benefit from consumers’ segment behaviour? Since this industry is on the frontier of innovation, if solution providers want to create a smooth, quick, and efficient payments strategy, they will find the insights into the gamer’s payments behaviour useful.
Karina Mata Farina is Head of Marketing at PagSeguro. She has over 18 years of experience in digital marketing, performance management, and ecommerce. Prior to PagSeguro, Karina worked in ecommerce companies, startups, and digital agencies.
PagSeguro is PagBank's (NYSE: PAGS) international division and provides innovative payment solutions, automating payments, sales, and wire transfers to boost businesses anywhere, in a simple and secure way. Part of the UOL Group – the leader in Brazilian internet – PagBank acts as an issuer, an acquirer, and a provider of digital accounts. besides offering complete solutions for online and in-person payments in Brazil and, through PagSeguro, in Brazil and 16 other Latin American countries, besides Portugal, Spain, Turkey, Greece, and Romania. PagSeguro allows merchants worldwide to process and collect more than 140 local payment methods and local currencies. It also provides instant single or mass cross-border payouts to Brazil. As a provider of payment solutions for foreign merchants, PagSeguro is well-established as the market leader in the online gaming segment, processing local payments for more than 6,000 games, including giants Valve, Garena, EA, Xsolla, Ubisoft, and Wargaming.
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