ESA: The American Games Industry in 2025
Generation Alpha is the most engaged console audience in the US.
General Market Overview
In 2024, American consumers spent $59.3 billion on games.
$51.3 billion was spent on content, $4.9 billion on hardware, and $3.2 billion on accessories.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, EA Sports College Football 25, and Helldivers II were the top-selling PC/Console games on the US market in 2024.
MONOPOLY GO!, Royal Match, and Roblox were the leaders in mobile revenue.
American Gamer Profile
23% of the entire US gaming audience is under 18. Meanwhile, 28% are over 50.
The average age of an American gamer is 36. On average, they have been playing games for 18 years.
The younger an American is, the more likely they are to play games for more than 1 hour per week. Among children and teens under 17, this is 84%; among older groups, it’s 60%.
Adults believe games bring joy (84% of respondents), stimulate brain activity (81%), and help cope with stress (81%). Overall, most Americans over 18 highlight a large number of positive effects from gaming.
They also believe games help develop problem-solving skills (78%), teamwork skills (69%), as well as adaptability and resilience (60%), among others.
83% of all US households played games on at least one device in the last 12 months. The most popular platform is mobile devices (72%), followed by PC (54%), consoles (42%), and VR devices (12%).
ESA also conducted an individual survey among players over 8 years old. Mobile devices lead in popularity (82%), followed by consoles (47%), PCs (45%), and VR devices (10%).
It’s commonly believed that younger generations play predominantly (and almost mostly) on phones. But the charts show that Generation Alpha are the most active console gamers, with 69% of this generation playing on consoles in the US.
Women (and girls) play games on PC and consoles less often than men (and boys)—the difference is almost 1.5 times. However, they play on mobile devices more frequently.
Social Effect of Games
72% of players over 8 years old play games with someone else. Most often (in 66% of cases), it’s real-life friends; in 40% of cases, friends met online; and in 32%—siblings.
79% of Generation Alpha and Z representatives play with their friends. 56% of Generation Alpha play with their parents.
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72% of users use in-game communication tools. Most often, these are text (used in 57% of cases) or voice (used in 52% of cases) chats.
84% of parents are aware of the ESRB rating. And 78% use it when making purchases.
Out of 4,861 games rated in 2024, 88% were marked E, E10+, or T (E—for all ages, E10+—for children over 10, T—for teens, equivalent to 13+).
86% of parents have used parental controls for their home gaming system at least once.
70% of parents would prefer their children play games rather than spend time on social networks. 67% of parents believe games are more beneficial than social networks.
Game Accessibility
49% of users with various disabilities noted that overall game accessibility is important.
Among the most popular accessibility settings are the ability to adjust text size (50%), difficulty level (39%), camera (35%), and enable subtitles (35%).
