New data is suggesting that Americans just aren’t spending as much money on physical video games as they used to, with Circana stating that the rate fell 11% from 2024 to 2025.
Industry analyst Mat Piscatella shared the figure in a Bluesky post (via Kotaku) on March 2. Piscatella confirmed that when looking at the data between 2024 and 2025, last year saw an 11% decline in spending on physical video games in the US. Although that sounds like a terrible number, it’s less drastic than 2024’s figure, which was -28%. The decline, according to Piscatella, slowed because we’re “nearing the bottom” (presumably of this console generation), and the Nintendo Switch 2’s launch last year helped “stabilize” the numbers a bit.
Piscatella also noted that 2025 saw Americans spend $1.5 billion on physical video games, which is an all-time low since this data began being tracked in 1995. While the peak was in 2008 at $11.6 billion, Piscatella clarified that this figure has declined every year since. The most pronounced drop, however, was still 2024’s -28%.
