The 2025 Global Power of Play report was compiled in partnership with trade associations across six continents, including UKIE, Video Games Europe, and the International Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) in Australia and New Zealand.
This is the second time the report has been conducted, and includes findings from a survey of 24,216 active (weekly) players over the age of 16 in 21 countries.
The results were collated by global consumer research company AudienceNet.
Looking more closely at the global gender ratio of players, ESA president Stanely Pierre-Louis tells GamesIndustry.biz that "there are more women players than men players in 10 of the 21 countries, and two more countries have a 50/50 split."
Two of these countries included Brazil (57% women to 43% men) and South Africa (58% women to 41% men).
"While mobile is the runaway preferred device for women (64% play on mobile), nearly half of men play games on mobile devices and it's their most used device as well – so the gap isn't as wide as people would suspect," says Pierre-Louis.
Mobile is the preferred device for players overall at 55%, while 21% of those surveyed prefer playing on PC or laptop as well as console and handheld.
