This is how much the average gamer spends on the hobby

A new report has revealed what the average gamer spends on the hobby, with North American players dropping the most cash every year.

The report from Newzoo and Tebex analysed gamer behaviour and payment trends, with a gamer defined as anyone who’s played a console, PC or mobile title in the past six months.

According to the report, there are 930million PC gamers, 653million console gamers and 2.9billion mobile gamers currently active. 53 per cent of those come from the Asia-Pacific area of the world, with 13 per cent of gamers coming from Europe and 7 per cent from North America.

However, North American gamers are responsible for 28 per cent of all global gaming revenue, spending $52.7billion in 2025 while Europe is behind 18 per cent. “Our revenues encompass consumer spending on games: physical and digital full-game copies, ingame spending and subscription services such as Xbox Game Pass,” explains the report.

According to the report, the average North American gamer will spend $329 a year, which is the most in the world. The hobby will cost the average Western European $170 a year while Eastern Europeans are only spending $50 a year.

The highest grossing gaming genre around the world is role-playing. North Americans are spending the most on shooting games such as Call Of Duty while Europeans are obsessed with sporting titles.

The most popular reasons for spending money on gaming are as follows:

Europe

For sale/special offer/good price (28 per cent)
Unlock extra/ exclusive content (27 per cent)
Play with friends or family (23 per cent)
Advance quicker/easier in the game (21 per cent)
Play without seeing in-game ads (21 per cent)

North America

Unlock extra/ exclusive content (34 per cent)
Play with friends or family (30 per cent)
Personalise characters or things built in-game (29 per cent)
Advance quicker/easier in the game (28 per cent)
For sale/special offer/good price (27 per cent)

This year, there’s been backlash over the price of games. Nintendo has introduced a variable pricing structure for Switch 2 titles while Microsoft has backtracked on plans for a price hike on its third-party titles.

In other news, YouTuber Basically Homeless has started electrocuting himself to get better at online shooter Counter-Strike 2.