24% of gamers play with other family members.
24% of gamers play with other family members.
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ESA CEO: 64% of U.S. adults are gamers, 41% of players are women, older people are playing more

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 3 min

Sixty-four percent of American adults, or 214.4 million people, play video games, according to a report by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), which represents the game industry.

ESA CEO Stanley Pierre-Louis said in a speech at the Games For Change Festival on Tuesday that 41% of gamers are women. And the average age of gamers is now 35 to 44 years old. Forty-six million gamers have disabilities, according to the AbleGamers Charity. And a survey by the American Association of Retired Persons in 2019 found 44% of Americans over age 50 enjoy games at least once a month, up from 38% in 2016.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.