Solo vs. Social: How Americans Play Across Digital and Tabletop Gaming

Is modern gaming isolating — or more social than ever?

While video games are often associated with solitary screen time and tabletop games with face-to-face interaction, participation data from 2025 suggests both ecosystems blend solo and social play in different ways.

This report compares how Americans engage across digital and tabletop gaming — and what the numbers reveal about shared and independent play today.

Key Data Highlights

  • 65% of U.S. adults play video games, representing more than 205 million Americans (ESA, 2025)

  • 55% of video game players report playing with others at least once per week (ESA, 2025)

  • 89% of teen gamers play with others online or in person; only 11% play exclusively solo (Pew Research)

  • U.S. video game consumer spending reached $59.3 billion in the latest reported year (ESA, 2025)

  • 23% of U.S. adults list board or card games as a hobby (YouGov)

  • 26% of people report playing board games at least once per week

  • Gen Con 2025 drew nearly 72,000 attendees, the largest attendance in the convention's history

  • Tabletop games raised an estimated $173 million on Kickstarter in 2025, across 1,021 successful projects at an 84% success rate

Digital Gaming: Massive Reach, Flexible Social Structure

Video gaming has become a mainstream American pastime by nearly any measure.

According to the Entertainment Software Association's 2025 Essential Facts report, 65% of U.S. adults play video games — a figure that translates to more than 205 million people. The average U.S. gamer is in their mid-30s, indicating that Millennials now form the backbone of the gaming population, alongside substantial Gen Z and Gen X participation.

The format is overwhelmingly flexible. Digital platforms support everything from online multiplayer and competitive esports ecosystems to couch co-op and deeply personal single-player experiences.

That flexibility shows up in the data: 55% of players report gaming with others on a weekly basis, while a meaningful share engages primarily in solo play. It's worth noting that these two modes are not mutually exclusive — many players move between social and solo formats depending on the day, the game, or the mood, which is a design affordance that digital platforms are uniquely positioned to offer.

The sheer scale of consumer spending in digital gaming — $59.3 billion in the latest reported year — speaks to the breadth and depth of the market. This figure encompasses hardware, software, subscriptions, and in-game purchases, reflecting an ecosystem that monetizes both social and solo engagement at enormous scale.

Among younger players, the social dimension is even more pronounced. Pew Research data on teen gamers shows that 89% play with others — whether online or in person — and only 11% describe themselves as exclusively solo players.

This suggests that for younger generations, gaming is increasingly understood as an inherently social activity, even when the platform itself is digital. Online connectivity has effectively transformed what was once a solitary experience into a persistent, networked social space — one that for many teens rivals or supplements traditional in-person socializing.

Tabletop Gaming: Smaller Scale, Stronger In-Person Signals

Tabletop gaming operates at a notably smaller scale than digital gaming in terms of raw participation.

YouGov data indicates that approximately 23% of U.S. adults list board or card games as a hobby, and survey benchmarks suggest around 26% of people play board games at least once per week. While these numbers are modest relative to digital gaming's reach, they represent a committed and active population — not casual or occasional dabblers, but people who have integrated tabletop play into a regular rhythm of life.

What the tabletop segment may lack in breadth, it compensates for with depth and intentionality.

The participation signals from 2025 are striking: Gen Con — North America's largest tabletop gaming convention — drew nearly 72,000 attendees, a record for the event. That kind of sustained, in-person gathering points to a community that organizes deliberately around shared physical play.

Conventions like Gen Con are not passive spectator events. They are multi-day participatory experiences centered almost entirely on people playing games together, face to face, at the same table.

The crowdfunding landscape reinforces this picture. A third-party analysis of 2025 Kickstarter tabletop activity estimates $173 million raised across 1,021 successful projects, with an 84% project success rate.

These figures reflect not just consumer spending but active community investment — backers who are engaged enough to fund games before they exist. The high success rate in particular suggests a market that knows what it wants and shows up reliably to support it. That's a meaningful signal of category loyalty that is difficult to replicate in mass-market consumer segments.

While many modern tabletop designs include optional solo modes, the dominant participation structures in the category — conventions, organized play events, crowdfunding communities — remain oriented around shared, in-person experiences.

Generational Patterns Across Both Formats

Both ecosystems span multiple generations, but with different centers of gravity.

Digital gaming's mid-30s average age points to strong Millennial engagement, while teen participation data from Pew illustrates that Gen Z is socializing through screens at high rates. Gen X players — now in their 40s and 50s — represent a substantial portion of the digital gaming audience as well, having grown up alongside the medium itself.

Tabletop gaming shows a somewhat different generational profile. YouGov data suggests that adults aged 55 and older are proportionally more represented among board gamers than they are in the video game population.

This may reflect the longer cultural history of board and card games as family and social entertainment, predating the rise of home consoles. At the same time, 18–34-year-olds account for a substantial share of tabletop hobby participation — a demographic that increasingly overlaps with the Millennial video game audience, suggesting meaningful crossover between the two formats.

This generational crossover is significant for understanding the current moment in gaming culture. A 32-year-old who grew up playing video games is now just as likely to organize a weekly board game night as they are to log into an online multiplayer session.

The two formats are not competing for the same slice of leisure time so much as they are filling different social and experiential needs for the same person.

Two Parallel Ecosystems

The data does not tell a story of competition between digital and tabletop gaming — it tells a story of coexistence.

Digital gaming dominates in total reach and consumer spending, serving hundreds of millions of Americans across a spectrum of solo and social modes. Tabletop gaming operates at a smaller economic scale but exhibits strong signals of repeat engagement, community loyalty, and intentional social play.

One useful frame for thinking about the distinction: digital gaming often fits into the available spaces of daily life — a commute, a lunch break, an evening wind-down — while tabletop gaming tends to require more deliberate coordination.

You have to choose the game, find the people, clear the table, and commit the time. That friction, paradoxically, may contribute to the depth of engagement the tabletop community displays.

When people show up to a four-hour board game session or back a crowdfunding campaign months before a game ships, they are making an active, considered investment in a social experience.

Rather than substituting for one another, the evidence suggests Americans participate in both ecosystems — engaging digitally at mass scale while maintaining structured, physical gaming communities built around the table.

For brands, publishers, and journalists covering the gaming industry, the more interesting question may not be which format is winning, but what each one reveals about how Americans want to spend time with each other.