America's Favorite Video Game Genres

According to data published by the Entertainment Software Association, Americans spent a whopping $15 billion on computer and video games in 2014. These days gaming is bigger than both Hollywood and the music industry - it has become one of our most dominant cultural icons. The question has to be asked: what cultural icons do American gamers like the most?

When it comes to the distribution of video game sales by genre in 2014, 28.2 percent of people bought action titles. Shooters were the second most popular genre with 21.7 percent. Sports games were in third position, taking just over 13 percent of the market. Arcade games and flight simulations were at the opposite end of the scale with just 0.1 percent of total sales.

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Distribution of all U.S. video game sales by genre in 2014.

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Video game sales in the United States in 2018, by genre
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Most interesting genres of video games according to gamers in the United States as of December 2016
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Preferred video game genre in the U.S. as of September 2025
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Share of video gamers worldwide who have played games in select gaming genres in the past 12 months as of 2nd quarter 2025
Most popular video gaming genres among PC and console gamers in the United States March 2021 and March 2022
Popularity of the video game genre strategy in the U.S. 2019-2024 as of June 2024, by quarter

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