Video Games and Covid-19
The spread of COVID-19 has reached a pandemic level and has caused countries to go into a lockdown state. People are told to stay inside and limit contact with others by keeping a distance of 6 feet from each other until the lockdown is lifted. With millions of people stuck in their homes, many have turned to video games as way to spend their extra spare time. Playing video games can either be a single player experience, or multiplayer where players can join others online. Multiplayer games such as Call of Duty and Fortnite have become even more popular among teens and young adults. With more people buying and playing these games, it gives them things to do as well as helping the gaming industry thrive.
In the United States, according to a report from Verizon Mobile, there has been a 75 percent increase in data usage for video gaming, and a 20 percent increase in web traffic. Kyle Malady, the Chief Technology Officer of Verizon spoke on these findings saying, “As more entertainment options are canceled in communities across the US, an increase in video traffic and online gaming is not surprising.” The demand for video games has risen drastically and does not look like it will be going down soon. Because of this increase, the gaming market will be doing much better than in past years.
As of March 16th, Cowen Inc. analysts Doug Creutz and Stephen Glagola released a report saying, “We expect video game sector fundamentals to fare far better than the market average during the current COVID-related extraordinary measures, and during any possible resulting recession.” They expect to see a positive return in the market over the next 12 months. As families are staying at home, their money is not being spent on vacations, concerts, and other outside activities. Being so, that money could potentially be spent on video game consoles and games.
Specifically, Nintendo Switch sales have been up 34 percent as of last quarter selling 3.29 million units even after a disruption in production due to COVID-19. A game released late March, Animal Crossing: New Horizons for the Switch had sold 11.77 million units by the end of March 31st. This is a massive amount of sales for Nintendo making the game into the top 6 of highest selling games for the console. The amount of units sold may not have a direct correlation with COVID-19, but it is suspected that parents would buy the game for their children to keep them busy under these times.
Many PC gamers use the application, Steam, developed by the Valve Corporation. And due to COVID-19, many more players have decided to start using the platform again. As of March 16th, Steam had broken a record of most players at a time. Their record surpassed 20 million concurrent players, and of those players, 6.3 million of them were actively playing games. This broke the previous record of 18.8 million. Games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and Dota 2 saw the largest boost of players. Gamingstreet reports these findings and say that this spike in activity “looks to be more of a trend than an anomaly.”
As the outbreak is still spreading it is difficult to tell at this time when any type of lockdown will end. In the meantime, video games and use of online media will continue to remain very active and prevalent. If you happen to have some spare time, there are many games available on a variety of platforms. Go out and find your type of game waiting to be played.
