Stable video game market thanks to mobile exploit
By 2025 turnover at 2.4 billion and a player plays on average almost 8 hours a week
by Enrico Netti
An altogether mature market that counts on an audience of loyal fans. It is the videogame market that in 2025 in Italia recorded a turnover of 2.4 billion euro, -1% on the previous year, of which just over three quarters, about 1.8 billion, came from the sale of software, of titles increasingly 'downloaded' from manufacturers' sites. Sales of hardware, Microsoft Xbox, Sony Playstation and Nintendo Switch 1 and 2 see slight growth (+3%) to around 400 million while accessories are down 5% to 152 million. This is what emerges from the latest edition of the research 'Videogames in Italia in 2025' by Iidea, the Italian interactive digital entertainment association, with data collected by Game track and Ipsos.
Video gamers account for about one third of Italians aged between 6 and 64, 40% of whom are girls or women, and 60% are under 35. Enthusiasts have a keyboard or controller in their hands every day, playing for just over 75 minutes, which becomes almost 8 hours a week. This is one hour less than the players in the top 5 EU markets. In a typical week, men play more than women, 9 hours against 5 hours, but the peak is reached between the ages of 12 and 17 when 15 hours and 31 minutes are reached. Interest eventually decreases to adult players, aged 18 to 75, who devote between 4 and 6 hours a week to gaming.
Year after year, the importance of gaming apps for the smartphone grows, in fact the most used device as 80 per cent of players use it for almost five hours a week. With in-game purchases and the freemium model, spending in 2025 was 929 million. Apps and especially premium content for smartphone gaming are the ones that have seen an acceleration of 18 per cent in the last three years. Apple Arcade is the most popular service among iOS users compared to Google Play Pass for the Android world.
For consoles, just over a third of sales were made with traditional physical media, both new (27%) and used (9%). The rest of the market is made up of the online purchase of the title, which is downloaded from the manufacturer's platform, and secondly of the countless downloadable contents, weapon or car skins and game expansions that enrich the experience and the fun.
A similar situation can be seen with subscription services for consoles, which feed a business of EUR 135 million: the largest share (59%) is related to subscriptions to the console ecosystems of Microsoft Xbox, Sony Playstation and Nintendo, while another 35% comes from the platforms of the publishers and publishers of the titles. On consoles, the genre that is most popular is sports games followed by adventure, racing, action and shooter titles. In addition to the hours spent playing games, players consult social networks in search of news, previews, tricks and shortcuts: YouTube is the most popular platform for discussing and discovering video games, followed by Twitch, which maintains a leading role.
