Japan’s SMBC Consumer Finance has released this year’s results of their annual online survey on the spending habits of Japanese people in their 20s. With exactly 1000 participants in the age range of 20 to 29, the survey, conducted in February 2025, researched the relationship young people have with spending money in many different areas of life, including gaming.
The gaming-related portion of the survey mainly focused on in-game transactions and how willing Japanese people are to spend on them. A surprising 18.8% of the participants said that “they once spent so much money on in-game purchases that they couldn’t cover their living expenses,” and out of all respondents, 23.9% admitted to regretting spending money on in-game transactions.
When the participants were asked whether they agree with the statement “I’m willing to pay to have an advantage in-game,” 17.9% of them agreed. Out of all male participants, 23.8% agreed with the statement, which is 7.6% more than the last year’s result – in 2024, to the same question, only 16.2% of men answered yes. As for the statement “I can’t enjoy the game if I don’t make in-game purchases,” 20.8% of the respondents said that they agreed, which is 2.7% more compared to last year.
The statistics also show that women seem to be considerably less likely to spend money on in-game purchases than men. However, if we compare last year’s results with the data from this year, it becomes clear that the percentage of women who spend money on in-game transactions has also risen. To give an example, this year, 18.4% of women disclosed that they can’t enjoy the game if they don’t make in-game purchases, which is 2.6% more compared to 2024. In the same category, the number of men with positive answers has increased by 2.8% compared to last year. Simply put, women are following the trend at almost the same pace as men, with the proportion remaining more or less as-is.
According to the survey results, the number of people who spend money on gacha and other games that offer microtransactions has overall risen by 5.8% – from 15.8% in 2024 to 21.6% in 2025. However, interestingly enough, while these results indicate that the popularity of in-game transactions may be increasing, the average amount of money spent on them is actually decreasing. In 2024, young people spent an average of around 5,138 yen ($35.85 USD) on microtransactions per month while this year’s survey results state that the average amount of money spent on microtransactions is 4,247 yen ($29.63 USD) per month.
