The annual Entertainment Software Association Essential Facts survey is out today, revealing the results of the industry body’s questioning of 13,545 people in the U.S. regarding their relationship with video games. The figures show the numbers of Americans playing games has slightly grown since 2025. 67 percent of the country, or 212.3 million people, are playing games. But more notably, that figure includes 32 percent of those aged 81 to 90.
The current data represents a 3 percent growth in the number of people playing games on 2025, but while it’s hard to know how much of this is due to sampling variation, it’s almost certainly not representative of a trend. The earliest ESA data I could find showed 60 percent in 2001, but it’s worth noting that the current 67 percent figure was reported in 2010. It was down to 63 percent again by 2016, so this seems to swing around a fair bit. According to 2020’s report the total number of players was slightly higher at 214.4 million. Yet in 2024 it seemed to have wildly plummeted to just 190.6 million, or 61 percent!
But what stands out in this latest report is the age breakdown, which is far more detailed in 2026 than we’ve seen before. Usually games players are grouped into under 18s, 18-50s, and 50+. But this year the data is more helpfully broken down, revealing the stunning number of octogenarians who are playing games on a weekly basis.
Mobility Scooters
It’s tempting to assume this is all explained away by mobile gaming. As is always the case with the ESA Essential Facts report, it’s important to remember that the organization exists to promote the video gaming industry (and not always in the interests of those who play them, not least in its current revolting stance taken against the Stop Killing Games movement), and as such it tends to obfuscate its data in ways that somewhat obscure the reality of who is playing what. The way the ESA deliberately muddies mobile gaming and console/PC is certainly unhelpful for understanding the industry, but beneficial to its interests. (But hey, it’s better than the way it used to include completely dishonest and made up figures on money “lost” to “piracy” back in the 00s!)
Yet, looking through the more detailed breakdown of the figures, while the so-called Silent generation hasn’t exactly embraced modern consoles (although 7 percent report they are!), PC still gets a pretty hefty look-in. Unhelpfully the ESA combines Boomer (62-80) and Silent together here, and in line with every other age group 84 percent of older games players are regularly on their mobile, but 39 percent report gaming on PC too. Yes, the majority of this could well be Snood, but given many in the age bracket are those who embraced gaming in the ’70s and ’80s, it’s going to include a fair amount of the likes of Civ 7 or Skyrim.
But yes, the survey is always very careful not to usefully break down just how much of its numbers are actually made up of free-to-play mobile puzzle games, its time seemingly instead taken up with filling pages saying just very important and adored are its ESRB ratings. The only giveaway is the genre section that shows Puzzle massively ahead of everything else, played by 59 percent of those who say they game for more than an hour a week, and reaches 74 percent for Boomers/Silent players. The next highest in the age bracket is whatever “Skill & Chance” games are at 53 percent, and then plummets to 21 percent for “Arcade & Other.” Role Playing and Shooter are in single digits.
Do no evil
The rest of the report is the usual emphasizing of the significantly large numbers of adults who play games with children, and those who self-report gaming as a very positive aspect of their lives. And yes, it’s all true, always has been true, and always will be ignored by the wider media that reacts in astonishment every time a gaming story breaks through to the morning news consciousness. (“Games have come a long way since Pong!” they’ll exclaim for all of eternity.)
Now if only the ESA could drop its deeply tedious obsession with DRM and get behind games preservation, we could perhaps celebrate these figures with slightly less cynicism.
