Gaming puts it to the test
Something I have noticed in the last few years is people wanting to expand their communications to "gamers". That makes complete sense. Gaming is now one of the UK's biggest entertainment industries, with consumers spending a record £8.76bn on games in 2025, up 7.4% on 2024. Around 3.6 billion people play games worldwide, and the audience is broader than ever, spread across phones, consoles and PCs and taking in a far wider mix of people than before. But when someone says they want to "reach gamers", who do they actually mean?
Someone playing Call of Duty most evenings? Someone working through a real-time strategy campaign at the weekend? Or someone playing a puzzle game on their phone while watching TV?
I'll admit I'm biased here. I've been an avid gamer since I was about 11. I grew up with Halo, lost most of my second year of uni to Skyrim, and have spent an honestly embarrassing number of hours grinding Destiny well into my 30s. But I know my habits look very different from my friends', let alone the wider gaming community's. So whenever I hear someone say they want to target "gamers" with their comms, I get slightly frustrated, because that one word covers so many different people.
So I used GWI data to look at who the UK gaming audience really is. 69% of UK online adults play games on at least one device. That is significantly higher than I'm sure many of you would anticipate and clearly makes gaming a big opportunity for communications professionals. It also makes "gamers" a very loose description of an audience. When around seven in ten adults play, they can't be treated as a single audience, especially when how, where and why they play varies so much from one person to the next.
Gender is a good example. There's been plenty of discussion about the rise of women in gaming, and on the surface the data backs it up. The latest GWI data shows that across all devices, UK gamers are a 50/50 split between men and women.
However, when we look underneath those figures the picture shifts. The share of women falls steadily as you move from casual mobile or occasional gaming towards more committed players, the group GWI classes as "hardcore gamers":
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Smartphone gamers: 53% women, 47% men
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PC/laptop gamers: 42% women, 58% men
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Console gamers: 38% women, 62% men
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Live gaming stream viewers: 38% women, 62% men
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Esports fans: 34% women, 66% men
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'Hardcore' gamers (those who say they are extremely interested in gaming): around 30% women, 70% men
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Self-described gamers: 27% women, 73% men
So whether gaming is "balanced" or "male dominated" depends on where you draw the line. The further you move from casual mobile play towards dedicated hardware and higher commitment, the more male the audience becomes. Women are clearly not absent from gaming communities, but the headline 50/50 balance isn't enough to base communications strategy on.
Identity matters too. Women make up half of all players, yet only 8% of UK online women describe themselves as a gamer. Messaging that leans heavily on gaming culture could miss, or even put off, large chunks of the target audience simply because they don't see it as being for them.
If we use an industry example for a business like PlayStation, knowing more women are gaming is interesting, but knowing which women play on console, what they enjoy and what might bring them back is far more useful. The same goes for advertising. An ad in a mobile puzzle game and an esports sponsorship would both reach a "gamer" audience, but they reach very different people in very different contexts.
Demographics only explain part of the nuances behind gaming. It's also interesting to look at the motivations behind gaming behaviours.
In our analysis of GWI data on UK gamers, the top reasons for playing were fun (58%) and relaxation (57%). Challenge mattered to 23%, and 14% played to socialise with friends, rising to 27% among 16- to 24-year-olds.
That changes the creative brief. A message built around competition might connect with one group and do very little for someone who plays to switch off after work. For younger players, the draw may be as much about time with friends as the game itself.
Tastes are fragmented too. No single franchise reached more than 17% of UK gamers, so content built around one title, or around esports alone, will miss a lot of people.
I find gaming is a really useful example to discuss the importance of looking beyond a single audience identifier. I think gaming remains one of the less well understood sectors, especially when it comes to government and more traditional institutional communications. But just like when we talk about "young people", "parents" or "the military community", it is essential to go beyond surface-level identifiers and properly understand the nuances of these groups.
An audience label is a starting point. Good communication depends on knowing who within it you need to reach, what matters to them and why they'd want to engage.
By Thomas O'Kelly, Senior Research Manager