The global video game market is expected to be worth an enormous $268.81 billion by 2025. North America is the top-grossing region in the world at $80.9 billion followed by the Far East & China and West Europe at $78.5 billion and $77.4 billion respectively. But what about hours spent playing video games?
The countries in which people play video games for the most hours per week are:
- China, 12.39 hours
- Vietnam, 10.16 hours
- India, 8.61 hours
- Indonesia, 8.54 hours
- United States, 7.71 hours
- United Kingdom, 7.17 hours
- Germany, 7.13 hours
- South Korea, 5.88 hours
China tops the list with people on average playing video games for 12.39 hours per week, exceeding the global average of 8.45 hours by a wide margin. The top 5 countries with people that play video games the most are predominantly from Asia, with the United States coming in at 5th place.
The Chinese population’s high video game playing time has previously led to a government crackdown resulting in 14,000 companies going out of business, but there have been signs of the crackdown easing. While video games may be perceived as going against certain government and societal values such as hard work, the market creates a huge number of jobs and generates billions of dollars in revenue. It’s also worth noting that video games aren’t automatically associated with laziness or letting it rot, a movement that encourages giving up on achieving anything in Chinese society. To be a professional gamer or streamer, for example, requires considerable time and effort.
The video game global market size is expected to grow substantially in the following years, coming close to double the market size in 2020. Alongside that growth will be conflicts within society that attempt to curb the amount of time playing video games and the economic benefits the industry creates. As internet access grows wider and wider, we may soon see new countries on the list of those with the highest playing time.