For decades, the entertainment industry measured audience engagement in seats filled and screens watched. That model worked when content was something people consumed individually. It is increasingly irrelevant to a generation that treats entertainment as a place they live in.
A Deloitte survey found that 40% of Gen Z and Millennials report socialising more inside video games than in the physical world. A separate study by SQ Magazine puts that number even higher for active gamers, with 58% of Gen Z gamers now describing gaming as their primary social space, ranking it ahead of messaging apps and social media platforms.
The entertainment industry is only beginning to understand what that means.
Also Read: Americans spend 7 hours a week on podcasts. That’s more than most people watch TV shows
Numbers behind the shift
The global online gaming population reached 3.43 billion in 2025, according to SQ Magazine’s Online Gaming Statistics report. Among Gen Z specifically, Entertainment Software Association’s annual Essential Facts report released in June 2025 found that 89% of Gen Z aged 13 to 28 believe video games can introduce them to new friends, relationships. That same report found that 93% of Gen Z have played a game with others at some point compared to 72% of total population of players aged 8 to 90.
The average gamer spends 9.4 hours per week playing online games, per SQ Magazine data. For Gen Z and Millennials, that average rises to 10.3 hours per week. To compare, the average American spends roughly 7 hours a week on social media across all platforms. Gaming has already overtaken traditional social media for time spent among this demographic.
Guilds, clans, online communities within games now include approximately 1.8 billion users globally, with the majority participating on a daily basis. Among multiplayer gamers across all ages, 67% use voice chat regularly. And 45% of Gen Z gamers report having made at least one real-life friend through gaming.
What is happening inside these games
Understanding gaming as a social phenomenon requires looking at specific platforms and the behaviours happening on them.
Roblox reported 132 million average daily active users in Q1 2026, up 35% year-over-year, per the company’s shareholder letter filed with the SEC. Users engaged for 31 billion hours during that single quarter. To contextualise that number, Roblox logged 75 billion hours of engagement across Q3 and Q4 of 2025 combined, according to the gaming research firm Naavik. That compares to 96 billion hours of engagement on Netflix over the same six-month period. A children’s gaming platform is generating engagement approaching two-thirds of the world’s largest streaming service.
Users on Roblox updated their avatars an average of 274 million times per day in 2025, per inStreamly’s platform analysis. That level of identity expression goes well beyond gameplay. People are using these environments to experiment with how they present themselves, socialise in real time, build reputations within communities that matter to them.
Fortnite averaged 110 million monthly active users in 2025. That’s roughly 30 million daily. Metaverse-style ecosystems inside games like Fortnite and Horizon Worlds host over 312 million monthly users combined, according to SQ Magazine. The all-time concurrent peak for Fortnite stands at 14.3 million players during a live event, per inStreamly. These are numbers that rival major sporting events.
Creator payouts across the top three UGC gaming ecosystems, Roblox, Fortnite, and Overwolf, reached approximately $2.2 billion in 2025, a 47% increase over 2024, according to Naavik research. Gaming is not just where Gen Z socialises. For a growing number of young people, it is where they earn income.
The loneliness paradox
There is a contradiction sitting at the center of this story that the data does not let anyone ignore.
The same generation that socialises most heavily through gaming is also the loneliest generation on record. A GWI study found that 80% of Gen Z respondents agreed they had felt lonely in the past 12 months, compared to 45% of baby boomers. Research from ZipDo found that 61% of Gen Z feel they do not have enough meaningful social interactions, and 48% report struggling to maintain long-term friendships. The American Psychological Association has documented a 30% rise in loneliness levels among young adults over the past decade.
The Cigna Group’s 2025 Loneliness in America report confirmed that Gen Z reports the highest loneliness levels of any generation, with Millennials close behind.
This creates an obvious question: if tens of millions of Gen Z spend hours each day socialising through games, why are they still reporting record loneliness?
The answer the data suggests is that gaming fills a social need, but it does not fully replace the depth of in-person connection. A ZipDo survey found that 62% of Gen Z themselves believe digital interactions are not a substitute for face-to-face contact. People are spending more time in gaming communities partly because the alternative, building and maintaining in-person friendships as a young adult, has become structurally harder. Remote school and work, later marriage rates, urban density without neighbourhood community, and social anxiety all contribute. Gaming is the social infrastructure that is available, not necessarily the one that is preferred.
Why brands and entertainment companies are paying attention
Roblox’s Q1 2026 shareholder letter stated platform is aiming to capture 10% of global gaming content market. Over 1,000 brands are already running ads on the platform with Rewarded Video completion rates above 90% and viewability rates at 95%.
Fortnite generated estimated $6 billion in revenue in 2025, majority from cosmetic sales, according to inStreamly’s brand analysis. That revenue model, in which players voluntarily spend money to customize how they appear to others, is fundamentally a social behaviour. It mirrors the logic of fashion, not the logic of traditional gaming.
The social gaming market as a whole is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 16% between 2023 and 2029, reaching approximately $76.8 billion, according to industry analysis cited by Adjust. Generation Z and Millennials are the most likely demographics to make in-app purchases, at 62% and 61% respectively. And 17% of Gen Z makes in-game purchases daily.
Traditional entertainment companies are watching. Naavik’s state of UGC report noted that Roblox’s three biggest hit games in 2025 each generated more monthly engagement than Fortnite’s core Battle Royale mode. This is user-generated content on a gaming platform outperforming one of the most commercially successful games in history. That is not a trend traditional studios can keep treating as niche.
By 2026, Gen Z is projected to be the largest spending audience in gaming, according to Deconstructor of Fun’s research, surpassing Millennials and Gen X in gaming-related purchases. The social gaming market’s growth forecast holds through 2029 regardless of economic conditions, because the underlying driver is not disposable income. It is a generation that built its social identity in these spaces and shows no indication of leaving.
Entertainment is still figuring out how to build things that feel more like a place than a product. Gaming got there first.