The State of Gaming 2025: Still the Biggest Cultural Platform on Earth

I love video games. Everyone who reads this, and knows me, will probably know that I do. I started with Game Boy’s and Nintendo’s, and took it to another level when online multiplayer started on the PC. I spent countless hours playing Medal of Honor: Allied Assault (MOHAA). Funny side story: the team behind that game split after an internal dispute.. one side stayed with EA to continue Medal of Honor, while the other left to create a new title called Call of Duty. The rest, as they say, is history.

I was about 12-14 years old when I spent all this time playing this game. It was also my first introduction to online gaming and was, via a tool called “TeamSpeak” speaking directly with people from all over the world. I think there are two things that taught me my initial English: Donald Duck and playing MOHAA with an international crew or “clan” as we called it then. I don’t think the term esports was very serious back then, but that is what we did. We would have training sessions and actual matches against other clans in order to climb a certain ladder of clans from all over the world. Great times.

Online multiplayer gaming also showed that gaming was going to be way more than kids locking themselves up in their bedrooms to play hours of games all by myself. But who would have thought then, that it would become so big as it is today.

Fast forward a bit to now. When COVID hit and the gaming numbers, obviously, absolutely exploded, many brands got interested in this industry. I argued then (and I still do now, but for different reasons) that brands were looking at gaming in a completely wrong way. This point of view landed me my job at Media.Monks and this is what I started preaching. Brands looked at esports as gaming. Meaning, sponsor an esports team (like you would sponsor a football team) and they thought they had covered the industry and with that, grabbed the opportunity. I strongly disagreed. Esports was big (and growing very fast, especially then) but it was only a tiny fraction of how big gaming actually was. It very much hit me when, during lockdown, Call of Duty was finally updating their wildly popular game mode called “Warzone”. Right before they did that, they proudly announced that they had 100 million (!) active players. At the moment of the launch, me and my friends (and everyone was playing then) were all ready to update and jump into this new map. Their servers couldn’t handle it and I tuned in to my favorite streamer on Twitch called Nickmercs. He was playing the new map and peaked at more than 100.000 live viewers, an incredible number. But that is also the moment when it hit me:

1- Only a few of us went to Twitch to watch a streamer play the game, the rest (who didn’t know about them) just stopped trying to play

2- The more important one. Nickmercs, one of the biggest streamers on the planet at that point, “only” reached 100k people. The servers were unplayable, so how could we reach that other, let’s say, 99 million people?

This was my point, brands were focused on those 100.000 people (figuratively speaking) and not on the 99 million.

Lots has happened since then. Gaming became bigger and bigger over the last five years and I think many brands eventually saw the opportunity. But then…. then there was AI.

AI took over public discourse, our LinkedIn and social feeds are filled with it and it is the top, top priority for every brand and company out there. Logically so. The same happened to my LinkedIn posts so to say, it’s a lot of AI and then there is room for other stuff I am interested in. Before that, it was a lot of Gaming.

But, did gaming slow down? Well, I can tell you, it definitely did not. A great reason to do a small deep dive into the state of gaming, six weeks before the end of 2025.

I am going to breakdown gaming in four different sections, all relevant for business leaders, brand builders and marketeers. The sections:

1- The Numbers
2- The Players
3- The Cultural Moments
4- Gaming & AI

The Numbers

Let’s start with the basics.

While everyone was chasing AI headlines, the gaming industry quietly reminded us who still runs the attention economy. According to Newzoo, the global games market will hit 188.8 billion dollars in 2025, up 3.4 percent from last year.

Many thought that maybe gaming would have to recover a bit and numbers would come down after the major explosion during COVID. It did not, it kept on growing. As a reminder, gaming is still larger than film and music combined. Almost 3.6 billion people around the world now identify as gamers. That’s nearly half the planet..

Although the industry’s growth might seem small, or normal (at 3%), there are still records being broken. Again, something that wasn’t really expected after such an explosion during COVID. In August 2025, Roblox hit a new all-time high of 47.3 million concurrent players, setting a record for most concurrent players on any platform ever. Let that sink in. Forty-seven million people logged in at the same time across one platform. That’s more than the entire population of Spain, all playing together.

It broke Steam’s record from earlier this year (41 million concurrent users in March) and reminded everyone that gaming’s momentum didn’t disappear when the metaverse hype cooled off. It just went quiet and kept growing.

And it’s not just volume. Roblox now counts around 380 million monthly active users, up more than 15 percent from last year. For context, that’s almost three times the size of TikTok’s U.S. user base. Steam’s daily traffic, meanwhile, continues to climb, reflecting a core truth that many outside the industry still underestimate: people don’t just play games, they live in them.

2025 also turned out to be a record-setting year for gaming M&A. The biggest shockwave came when Electronic Arts was acquired outright by a Saudi-backed private equity consortium in a deal valued at 55 billion USD. the largest buyout in gaming history, according to the Associated Press (AP News, 2025). What was once one of America’s most iconic gaming companies, home to EA Sports FC, Battlefield, and The Sims, officially changed ownership, marking a symbolic power shift in where global entertainment capital now sits.

Only weeks later, Niantic Labs, the studio behind Pokémon Go, announced the sale of its gaming division to Scopely, a company also backed by Saudi Arabia’s Savvy Games Group, for roughly 3.5 billion USD (Reuters, 2025).

Together, these two acquisitions defined 2025’s tone. Gaming is no longer just an entertainment business but also a global infrastructure play, where nations and investors are buying cultural influence as much as intellectual property.

Last but not least, beyond free games like Fortnite and Roblox, people still pay a lot of money and actually buy games. The latest major successful release is the new Battlefield. A franchise that always lost to Call of Duty, but this year it seems like the hype is on their side. When it launched on October 10 2025, Battlefield 6 sold over 7 million copies in its first three days, setting a new sales record for the franchise. On Steam, the open-beta peaked at over 521,000 concurrent players, the highest mark the series has ever hit on the platform. Early post-launch numbers showed the title hitting 704,005 concurrent players on Steam within an hour of release, making it one of Electronic Arts’ biggest launches to date on that platform.

The Players

A lot of people still have major misconceptions when it comes to the “type” of people that consider themselves gamers. If you haven’t let go of those by now, you definitely should.. Let me share some fascinating statistics, proving that gaming is for everybody, meaning gaming can also be for every brand.

Let’s start with the misconception that gaming is “just for young people”. Also in 2025, this is definitely wrong. For example: the average gamer in the U.S. is now 36 years old. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) reports that 60% of U.S. adults (ages 18+) play video games weekly(!). It also does not stop at a certain age level, with nearly half of boomers (ages 61 to 79) and 36% of the Silent Generation (ages 80-90) playing video games weekly. That’s wild.

But, yes, the younger they are the more they play. Generation Alpha (ages 5 to 12) numbers are staggering, with 83% playing video games weekly.

Another thing that might surprise a lot of people, is the split between male and female players. A lot of people, and definitely brands, think gaming is just for boys but the data shows it clearly is not. Gender splits are essentially balanced now: U.S. players are about 52% male, 47% female. Globally this number is almost identical with sources showing that at least 45% of the global gaming player base is female, and it’s been growing steadily over the years.

Last but not least. Gaming has never been as social as it is now. 72% of teens who play video games say that a reason why they play them is to spend time with others. And 47% even have made a friend online from playing with them.

Again, for brands, marketeers, it’s not a question IF your target audience plays videogames, it’s just a matter of HOW they play and HOW MANY there are..

The Culture

Gaming is everywhere. It’s a major driver of pop culture and the signs are still undeniable. Let’s start with the anticipation for, what probably will be, the biggest game release ever: GTA VI. The original trailer released last year and has 268 million views on YouTube, the second trailer released six months ago and got 100 million views in just four days..

On Instagram and TikTok, if there is a news event, there is always someone saying: “We got xyz before GTAVI). Because yes, GTA VI has been delayed twice already. That means there will be almost two full years of hype, of cultural connection, before the game actually releases. Have you ever seen such anticipation for a movie, album or anything else? Because I haven’t..

Fortnite also had major cultural crossovers this year, as always. During COVID it was Travis Scott that broke all record with his show inside Fortnite and the example was probably overused for a while. This does not mean the hype slowed down..

In the last few months alone, Fortnite announced two major groups joining the Fortnite stable with unique music experiences. First it was the legendary group Gorillaz and then the iconic duo Daft Punk.

But not only music has had successful crossovers with Fortnite this year. In November 2025, Fortnite pulled off one of the biggest pop-culture crossovers of the year with The Simpsons. The event transformed the game’s map into Springfield Island, complete with Homer, Marge, and Bart skins and tie-in mini-episodes on Disney+. Within 48 hours, Epic Games recorded its highest number of new and returning players since the previous holiday season, peaking at roughly 2.6 million concurrent players. It was a reminder that no one merges brands, nostalgia, and scale quite like Fortnite.

Gaming x AI

Gaming is obviously also going to be affected by AI and in more ways than one.

By the way, quick side note: before NVIDIA became the most valuable company in the world, worth over 5 trillion dollars in 2025 at one point, and arguably the most important player of the AI age, let’s not forget how they started. NVIDIA was built for gamers. Their first products were GPU chips designed specifically to make games run faster and look better. The same company now powering the world’s AI infrastructure once sold graphic cards to make Quake smoother.

And in a full-circle moment, NVIDIA is right back in gaming, only this time, it’s not about pixels. It’s about intelligence. Their ACE (Avatar Cloud Engine) is already being integrated into titles like PUBG, called PUBG Ally, giving players AI-driven companions and NPCs that can hold natural, unscripted conversations.

PUBG Ally interacts with players and other characters, and navigates the environment like a real human. PUBG Ally is aware of its surroundings, adjusting its playstyle based on your commands and emergent situations, making human-like decisions to support you, looting items and fighting other combatants, all without continuous prompting from the player.

Meanwhile, AI isn’t just changing how we play, it’s changing who can build. Roblox’s new suite of AI creation tools now lets users type prompts in plain language to code, build, and texture their own games. You can describe what you want: “create a forest with a hidden cave and glowing mushrooms” and Roblox’s AI will generate it instantly. These tools also include text-to-speech, speech-to-text, and real-time voice translation, lowering the barrier to entry for millions of aspiring creators. Anyone, regardless of technical skill, can now turn imagination into a playable experience.

Professional studios are also clearly adopting generative AI in their workflows. In August 2025, a Google Cloud and Harris Poll study found that 87% of developers already use AI tools in production, and 94% believe it cuts costs and accelerates timelines. In other words, AI is no longer an experiment in gaming but closer to standard practice.

Gaming For Brands

I want to urge every marketeer, every brand person, to not forget about gaming. I hope the above showed that gaming is not slowing down.

There is an old saying in marketing that goes: go where your audience is. Well, you guessed it, your audience is gaming.

But it’s not only that. If you only focus on putting your brand or ads in video games, you’re missing the bigger cultural impact that gaming has.

You need to open up your brand for play. That is the way to go. Gaming is not just a marketing strategy, it’s a way of building.

Younger audiences don’t want to be spectators. They want to interact, remix, and express themselves through the worlds and IPs they love. As I already argued in 2022 (click for my interview in Little Black Book), this generation doesn’t separate fandoms or brands. They mix Marvel with Dragon Ball, Nike with Fortnite, and create something new. The idea of strict brand control is outdated.

To stay relevant, brands must start treating their IPs like creative playgrounds instead of guarded castles. Provide tools, not rules. Let people make your world part of theirs — through avatars, collaborations, or fan-made spaces. Because when consumers can play with your brand, they make it their own. And that’s what builds long-term loyalty in the digital era.

Closing Thoughts

My opinion has not changed, it only got stronger. Gaming is the most important way for brands to interact with new and younger audiences. I see a similar trajectory as for social media. At first social media was just being tested, not taken serious, just be there. Now every brand has a major social media strategy and it is probably the most important part of their business. This will happen for gaming as well and the brands who understand this best will win.

But, don’t make the mistake that so many brands do. Don’t think that by “just” sponsoring an esports team or doing something with one game, ticks your “we in gaming” box. Gaming is enormous, it consists of hundreds of different audiences, and communities. Even within a game like Fortnite, there is at least 3-4 different types of players you can connect with as a brand. But, that is for a later article.

In a world built on participation, gaming isn’t just where culture happens.. It is the culture.

Much love,

Funs

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^{Over the years, I’ve navigated industries like advertising, music, sports, and gaming, always chasing what’s next and figuring out how to make it work for brands, businesses, and myself. From strategizing for global companies to experimenting with the latest tech, I’ve been on a constant journey of learning and sharing.}

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