A report has highlighted the playing habits of gamers across the US, with the majority spending most of their time on mobile games.
It’s no secret that mobile gaming is the most profitable corner of the gaming industry, with Xbox being the latest traditional publisher trying to make inroads into the market, as it once again attempts to challenge Google and Apple.
The mobile market’s dominance is highlighted in a new Circana report on the playing habits of US gamers, which quizzed 5,100 ‘active’ players, ages two and up, between May and June this year. As per the survey’s methodology, an active gamer is defined by whether they had access to a gaming device across mobile, PC, or console, and if they had used one within a month of the survey.
It turned out that 71% of US consumers (236.4 million people) engaged with video games in 2024, which is down from the 74% seen in 2020 during the peak of lockdown. This is still higher, however, than the 67% reported in 2018, pre-pandemic.
As far as US consumers go, 65% play mobile games, which is the same amount from two years prior and the largest gaming platform. The second biggest is PC games at 36%, down 4% from 2022. This is followed by console games at 35%, which is the same as 2022. Meanwhile, 13% play ‘other games’, with VR seeing an increase of 2% compared to two years ago.
The majority of gamers play across mobile and PC/console, at 66%, while 32% only play on one platform. In regards to the latter, 27% only use mobile devices.
The report divides the gaming audience into six separate categories: ‘super invested’ Super Gamers; multiplayer-centric Console Warriors; Transitionals, which are adult gamers who are heavily invested in mobile; Easy Accessors, aka younger gamers who largely only have access to mobile; casual older players (brilliantly) called Daily Dabblers; and Incidental Players who are described as non-gamers who play mobile games.
Incidental Players make up the largest segment of the overall gaming market at 23%, but this is a significant drop from two years prior. There’s also been a drop in players within the Daily Dabblers bracket, which now makes up the lowest portion at 14% – suggesting, perhaps, that the casual audience is in decline, or that they’re now becoming more invested.
Notably, the Transitionals segment has seen the biggest increase in the past two years, at 15%.
Elsewhere in the report, US gamers are said to spend an average of 14.5 hours a week playing games, which is up by 1.8 hours since 2022. Interestingly, console gamers play for the longest, at 10.2 hours per week. By comparison, mobile gamers spend 8.1 hours per week. PC gamers, surprisingly, are the least committed at 4.6 hours per week.
While the dominance of the mobile market isn’t exactly new information, it does make clear why companies like Microsoft and Sony are trying to expand into it, and maximise revenue by putting exclusive games on other platforms as the console audience fails to show growth.
Even if the mobile market is the largest, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s in a healthy shape either. According to a report earlier this year, the overall revenue from mobile gaming has decreased, due to restrictions by Apple and Google over monetisation.
Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.
MORE : Spider-Man developer Insomniac hiring for new open world PS5 game
MORE : Overwatch 2 added to Xbox Game Pass with lots of exclusive perks
MORE : Xbox lays off 650 more staff as total cuts pass 2,500 since buying Activision Blizzard
Sign up to all the exclusive gaming content, latest releases before they're seen on the site.
Share this with