Gaming Is No Longer A Niche, It’s A Dominant Medium

For years, gaming sat on the cultural sidelines, treated as entertainment for a specific crowd, but that framing no longer holds water.
New research from ELVTR, a leading provider of professional courses in gaming and next-level digital skills, based on a survey of 1,000 adults worldwide, shows that gaming has become a central competitor in the attention economy, right alongside social media and increasingly ahead of both TV and traditional media.

Roman Peskin, CEO at ELVTR, comments: “It’s now a dominant medium that asks for hours, not minutes, of focused engagement. That massive scale of attention is reshaping how people relax, socialise, learn, and even work.”

External data backs this up, too. Gen Z now spends more weekly hours gaming than watching television, and almost as much time gaming as scrolling social platforms. Games aren’t just an escape from the attention economy – now, they’re one of its main engines.

Holidays, Rituals and the Rise of Binge Play

One of the clearest signals of gaming’s cultural weight is how it now competes with long-standing rituals. According to ELVTR’s research, 86% of respondents plan to binge games over the holidays, with 14% going “full marathon mode” for the entire break. More than half say they have played through Christmas or New Year’s instead of celebrating at least once.

And the thing is, these aren’t edge cases. Seasonal events, expansions and live-service updates now function like cultural fixtures, in the same way TV marathons or big film releases once did. Games aren’t just something people fit around life; increasingly, life is being planned around games.

Gaming and Mental Health: Real Benefits, Real Trade-offs

The data resists simple narratives -most gamers report genuine benefits from play. In the ELVTR survey, 72% say gaming makes them feel calmer or happier, 71% say it helps them cope with anxiety or depression and 69% say it boosts creativity.

For many people, a gaming session now plays the role that TV, books or even the gym once did after work.

Roman Peskin, CEO at ELVTR, puts it plainly: he asserts that gaming has become part of many people’s “mental health stack”. It’s a tool for stress relief, connection, and creative expression.

But, the same research shows a meaningful minority paying real costs.

• Around 39% say they’ve played during work hours
• 26% have skipped dates or even sex to keep playing
• 28% have delayed essentials like rent or bills to buy games
• 6% report a relationship ending because of gaming

But, this isn’t a “games are bad” story. Rather, it’s a story about a powerful medium that delivers real value while quietly reshaping priorities. And, its importance is something that simply can’t be ignored anymore.

Power Users, Not Problem Players

To understand this better, ELVTR built a simple risk profile based on behaviours like skipping work, delaying essentials or sacrificing relationships for play. About a quarter of gamers fall into a high-risk category, with the rest split between moderate and low risk.

What’s striking is that high-risk gamers aren’t people who get nothing from games. In fact, they often report more positive effects than low-risk players – more calm, more coping, more creativity. Gaming isn’t hollow for them; it’s doing a lot of emotional work.

This is why framing intense players as “problem users” actually misses the point. They’re better understood as power users – the people who reveal where the medium is heading, for better and worse.

From Play to Profession

The link between intensity and career ambition is particularly strong, too. Among those who say gaming is “just a hobby”, only 17% fall into the high-risk group. Among those who dream of working in game development, that figure jumps to 33%. For aspiring streamers or pro players, it’s closer to 35%.

The people most willing to bend time, money and routines around gaming are also the most likely to want to build careers inside the industry, and, that has implications for both education and training.

As gaming creates more roles across design, writing, production, community and live operations, the boundary between passion and profession is thinning fast.

What Does This Mean for Work, Learning and Culture?

For employers, the message is pretty clear: gaming isn’t just a fringe hobby anymore.

“As the industry grows, so does the ecosystem around it, creating new opportunities not just for entertainment, but for work and learning. We see a steady rise in interest in gaming professions, from game writers and narrative designers to UI/UX designers specialized in gaming,” Peskin notes.

With nearly four in ten respondents admitting to calling in sick or taking time off to play at least once, gaming needs to be treated like any other powerful digital habit – that is, with clear norms rather than denial.

For educators, especially those working in digital skills, the challenge is coexistence. Games demand prolonged concentration. Designing learning that can compete with (or productively borrow from, if possible) that level of immersion is no small task.

And for the industry itself, the responsibility is growing. Design choices around progression, FOMO mechanics and social pressure don’t just affect engagement metrics. They show up in people’s relationships, finances and mental health.

Gaming at the Centre, Not the Edges

Taken together, the ELVTR Gamer Effect survey paints a clear picture. Gaming isn’t just a niche pastime. It’s a dominant medium, reshaping how people spend their time, manage stress, build relationships and imagine their careers.

Most gamers gain real value from that shift. A smaller but significant group pays real costs. Understanding both sides – without moral panic or blind optimism – is the only way to make sense of where gaming, and the wider attention economy, is heading next.