212 million Americans play video games weekly: what the ESA data shows

About two-thirds of Americans play video games every week, according to the Entertainment Software Association's 2026 Essential Facts About the U.S. Video Game Industry, released on June 3, 2026, and produced with the research firm YouGov. The ESA counts 212.3 million weekly players, or 67% of Americans ages 5 to 90 playing one or more hours a week, up 3%, or 7.2 million people, from 2025.

The typical player is not a teenager. The ESA puts the average player's age at 37, up from 36 in its 2025 report, which counted 205.1 million players.

Play by generation

Play falls with age but stays common: half of Boomers and nearly a third of Americans ages 81 to 90 play weekly. The ESA describes players as split “fairly equally between men and women.” Slightly more men and boys play in every generation except Boomers, where 52% of women play against 47% of men.

Adult players are more likely than the U.S. population as a whole to work full-time, 39% against 34%, and to have children, 35% against 30%, the ESA says.

Phones first

Mobile is the most popular way to play across all age groups, at 80%, while PC and console play is more common among Gen Alpha, Gen Z and Millennials. Genres differ by device: puzzle games, played mostly by older players, lead on mobile at 66% and on PC at 60%, while on console they trail action games at 66% and shooter and arcade games at 60% each.

Families and parents

Three-quarters of parents, 75%, play video games each week, and 81% say they play with their children, 52% at least weekly. Two-thirds of parents say they use parental controls, rising to 70% among parents of children 12 and under. Of the 54% who buy in-game content for their children, 93% require their approval for purchases.

The ratings on those games skew young. In 2025, 90% of the 6,761 ratings assigned by the Entertainment Software Rating Board were E, E10+ or T, the ESA says. Here is how ESRB ratings work.

The money

A majority of players, 63%, say video games give them the most entertainment value for their money, compared with streaming services for music, TV and movies, and with books, magazines and news. Most Gen Alpha (69%), Gen Z (78%) and Millennial (67%) players have bought in-game content, typically spending $20 a month at the median. In the past 12 months, 58% of players downloaded a free game, 43% bought a game, 35% bought a game subscription and 19% borrowed one.

The 2025 total of $60.7 billion was the second-highest on record, behind 2021's $61.7 billion, with subscription spending up 20%. Sensor Tower put mobile game spending at $26.7 billion. In March 2026, Circana and Sensor Tower restated the figures, putting the final 2025 total at $60.8 billion, with $52.4 billion on content and $2.9 billion on accessories.

2026 is running behind. Circana's latest monthly data put U.S. spending for the year through its September tracking period at $41.0 billion, 3% behind 2025's pace. See our report on Circana's September figures.

What other data adds

Pew Research Center's October 2026 survey on online communities shows how much the social side of gaming depends on age: 27% of U.S. adults under 30 are part of an online community about video games, compared with 16% of those in their 30s and 40s and 4% of those 50 and older. Many of the ESA's players are older, but in Pew's data, belonging to an online gaming community is far more common among young adults. More on Pew's findings on online communities.

How to read the numbers

• Source: the ESA is the industry's own association and describes itself as “the voice and advocate for the U.S. video game industry.” Essential Facts is its annual survey, not government statistics.
• Method: YouGov and the ESA ran a 20-minute online survey from February 11 to 25 among 13,545 respondents from YouGov's online panel, weighted to match the U.S. population. Players ages 8 to 17 answered with a parent supervising, and adults answered for everyone in their household so the ESA could count players as young as 5.
• Definition: the headline count is of people who play one or more hours a week.
• Comparisons: the 2025 report was based on 5,000 respondents and this year's on 13,545. The ESA's release gives no margin of error, so small year-on-year changes, such as the 3% rise in players, are best read as approximate.