How Users Pay for Games Online

June 20, 2016

Yandex.Money studied the online payment behavior of its users who play computer and online games. In total, 42% of what they spend through Yandex.Money they spend on games and game accessories (e.g., tools for characters, virtual currency). Compared to the average user, gamers spend seven times as much of their total spending on games.

Many game lovers make online purchases at night, from 11pm to 5am. 17% of online game purchases via Yandex.Money were made during these hours. However, in general, gamers are frugal consumers — they spend half the amount the average user spends online. Money transfers are less popular among gamers, with transfers making up one tenth of their spendings on Yandex.Money. Meanwhile, the average user spends one fifth of their online budget on transfers from their e-wallet or linked bank card.

Data collection was arranged through Yandex’s own technology Crypta. Crypta can distinguish clusters of customers by relying on those users’ online behavior. Data included information about payments that users made via e-wallet, linked bank card, and the Yandex.Money MasterCard (Yandex.Money has issued more than 400,000 physical bank cards and 10 million virtual cards).

Previously, Yandex.Money took a look at how online payment behavior differs among various groups of customers, clustering users by gender, occupation, mobile platform, and state of indebtedness.