Key Points

As of 2025, the global gaming community has expanded to around 3.32 billion players, showing a significant rise from previous years. In fact, video gaming has become an increasingly popular hobby for both the younger and older generations.

Of the 77 per cent of Russians who have played video games, 44 per cent consider themselves active players, while 33 per cent say they used to play but no longer do. This shows that while gaming is widespread, almost half of the respondents continue to play on a daily basis.

In Russia, gaming is predominantly favoured by men and younger adults, especially those that are financially stable. In contrast, women, older adults and those with lower incomes tend to have less gaming experience.

A distinctive feature of the Russian gaming landscape is the fact that personal computers remain the most popular gaming platform, Xinhua news agency reported. The findings of the poll show that 82 per cent of gamers use a computer or laptop to play games. A total of 63 per cent of the respondents use mobile phones, while 27 per cent use tablets, and 27 per cent consoles.

Russian mobile games are also becoming more popular among the population. The number of transactions on RuStore, Russia's official application store, has nearly doubled over the past year, with 60 per cent of payments linked to domestic games, Ilya Ulyanov, the Director of business development at RuStore, told Russian media Izvestia.

The improvement of the quality of games, the growth of the diversity of in-game content and the development of convenient payment methods are causing the growth of its domestic games, said Ulyanov, the income of Russian indie developers in RuStore increased four times in the first quarter of 2025 from the same period last year.

Although fewer people use consoles than mobile phones, console gaming remains a promising sector. For those Russians that do use consoles, they note that they offer a way to unwind and spend time with family and friends. PlayStation remains the most popular console, according to the report.

- IANS