According to the latest report of the Recreational Software Association (ESA), the total expenditure of United States game players in 2025 exceeded $60 billion, exceeding the combined consumer expenditure on films, television and music.
Circana data show that total consumer spending on games in the United States in 2025 was $60.7 billion. Of this amount, $52.3 billion was spent on content, $5.4 billion on hardware and $2.95 billion on spare parts. This figure is almost at the same level as in 2021, with expenditures of $61.7 billion in 2021, the highest year to date.
According to the report, 13,545 respondents were surveyed, 43 per cent of whom purchased games, 33 per cent of whom were digital and 24 per cent physical. It is noteworthy that 58 per cent of respondents chose to download free of charge. Thirty-five per cent of them purchased game subscriptions and 19 per cent played games by loan, exchange or lease.
The most important factors driving the purchase of a game over the age of 18 are price (52 per cent), followed by quality of the game (47 per cent), attractive story/set (41 per cent), type of game (41 per cent), quality of the image (37 per cent) and inclusion of a single game mode (37 per cent).
In the purchase of decorations and downloadable content, 58 per cent of respondents over the age of 8 have purchased the contents of the game. Reductions by purchase rate include currency (34 per cent), skin or custom items (27 per cent), season pass/combat pass (26 per cent), extension pack (26 per cent), additional maps/classes (19 per cent) and random content packages (15 per cent).
The ESA report also contains an interesting indicator of purchases in parent guidance games. Fifty-four per cent of parents have purchased the play for their children. Ninety-three per cent of parents who had purchased the contents of the game for their children indicated that they needed to approve the purchase of the children.