ESA Finds More Than 150 Million Americans Play Video Games

The Entertainment Software Association (the ESA) has crunched the numbers and has found that playing video games may not be as geeky as one may think.

After looking at the cold hard facts, the ESA has found that "four out of five American households own a device used to play video games." That's pretty impressive considering how many times I've been told that I'm an anomaly for playing them.  Furthermore, the ESA has found that over 150 million Americans play video games, which is pretty significant considering the United States population is currently hovering somewhere around the 320.7 million mark. That means that just under half of the United States population plays video games regularly. And if you're thinking that just because that many people play video games doesn't mean they religiously play video games, well think again. Apparently 42 percent of the United States population plays at least three hours of video games a week. Sure, that may not be much compared to some of the die hard video gamers out there, but it's still pretty significant when you think about all the things that the average person has to juggle in their life.

The ESA has also found that video gaming is surprisingly social. Of those who play video games, 54 percent play in online multiplayer mode at least weekly and 56 percent play with others. Plus, half of the people who do play video games admit that those games help them keep in touch with friends or family. Some other cool facts include:

• The average game player is 35 years old;
• The most frequent female game player is on average 43 years old;
• Women 18 years or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population than boys 18 years old or younger;
• On average, gamers have been playing for 13 years
• Consumers spent more than $22.41 billion on game content, hardware and accessories in 2014.

If you want to find out more of what the ESA found you can check out its article here.