Quarantine as a lifestyle: The Best Time for the Gaming Industry
While everyone is buying antiseptics, protection masks, toilet paper, cereals, and board games, some are still working. Comfortable chairs, PC or console, snacks, and favorite gaming platforms. For some, quarantine is a “lockdown” in their homes for long-long days and even weeks, and for others, it is yet another month of life, just more saturated with interesting events and discounts. These are the gamers who make money playing online.
Growth in interest in the gaming industry is confirmed by statistics. Just on Saturday, March 21, alone, more than 20 million people from around the world got together on the Steam platform. More than 6 million of them played games simultaneously, though with the release of the new Half-Life: Alyx, players have taken on the good old classic: CS: Global Offensive, Dota 2, PUBG, Rainbow Six Siege, GTA 5 and other popular games.
Media are also promoting such activity. Popular websites give advice on how exactly games can help you stay safe from a coronavirus, and Steam breaks all records by the number of people online. The gaming industry is now in its golden era. Those who wanted to play cool new games, they had missed, or just relax and have some fun, have finally got the time. In the high-tech era, with high-speed Internet and the rapid development of eSports, many people have chosen computer games as a way to have fun and thrill to spend their free time during a quarantine.
Cybersports Strikes the Coronavirus
Can cybersports not only entertain people but also benefit from the fight against the virus? It sure can, and there’s even more! Nvidia has called on all gamers around the world to use a special app in order to share some of the computing power of their PCs to help find a cure. The Disease Distributed Computing project simulates various aspects of molecular dynamics, such as protein folding or drug design. What makes this program unique is the ability to use the spare capacity of your PC to speed it up. An application by Pande Lab from the University of Stanford has been developing since 2000, but right now its work is incredibly relevant and important. Users can observe the app in real-time, choose where to direct their computing power, or shut it down.
WePlay! Esports Company, which is a part of TECHIIA techno holding, has created the WeSave! Charity Play, an eSports marathon, during which all the viewers of online tournaments could make donations that were added to the start-up fund from WePlay! Esports — $120,000. More than $188,000 has been raised and all funds have been donated to two charitable foundations that contribute to the creation of the coronavirus vaccine.
“We predicted an increase in interest in games during the quarantine. That’s why we organized not some traditional but a charity tournament and invoke everyone who was eager to make their contribution to the creation of a vaccine. Thanks to the tournament we have raised funds which we donated to two international charitable foundations: CEPI, which raises funds for the creation of the vaccine, and Global Giving, that that helps vulnerable groups around the world,” says Oleg Krot, the managing partner of the TECHIIA Holding.
24 teams from all over the globe participated in the tournament: NAVI, OG, Nigma, Team Secret, Virtus.Pro, Vici Gaming, Team Liquid, Team Adroit, HellRaisers, Geek Fam, Furia, PSG.LGD, CR4ZY, Cloud 9, B8, Business Associates, Beastcoast, BOOM Esports, IG, Noping Esports, Thunder Predator, TNC, EG, and EHOME. The commentators of the online broadcasts of the tournament worked in thematically designed studios, and their temperature has been checked by the special device.
Beneficial Time to Make Money Online
While hotels, airlines, and many other businesses are losing profits in no time, the number of people playing games, viewing, or making online broadcasts during quarantine is increasing day by day. Quarantine has become a gold mine for gaming companies, even though many gaming or technology events in the world have been postponed or canceled because of COVID-19. Eric Peckham, a TechCrunch media analyst, says that offline events are needed for businesses to showcase new products and find new business connections, and not to make a lot of money from them. Therefore, though live events being postponed or canceled it does not cause significant losses to gaming companies. Two categories of games are gaining more popularity, Free-to-play, and MMORPG — massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
The gaming industry is immune to all kinds of disasters. People will continue to meet, but now it’s online, from home. This leads not only to new records for gaming platforms but also to overloading or crashing them, as it happened to Xbox Live. Although, there were no cases of disruption of the gaming platforms in 2020, and the number of players is increasing every day.
And What’s Besides Games?
Quarantine has also strongly affected Ukrainian business. As some industries weakened, others became stronger. While some are raising their first capital in sales of protection masks and antiseptics, others are increasing the number of couriers, because the demand for drug or food delivery has risen up significantly. During quarantine, businesses are transforming quickly so that, if they do not make money, they will at least stay afloat. Monobank, for example, has given its customers 20% cashback on purchases on the PlayStation Store, Xbox | Microsoft Store, Netflix, MEGOGO, Pornhub, Brazzers, AppStore, and Google Play till the end of March 2020.
People spend a lot of money on entertainment services, buy ebooks, and try their best to be distracted while staying at home. A Publishing House called Nash Format gave free access to a whole bunch of ebooks, but people started downloading so much that the stock ended up really fast and the company had to end up the promotion because the company paid royalties out of its own pocket and just couldn’t bear the financial burden. The publisher reported this on Twitter.
Quarantine measures have also affected remote communication technologies. The number of registered users on Skype and Zoom has increased by 2–3 times. People have become more likely to use the service to communicate, work, and even create live online activities. Also, due to the offices being shifted to remote work, much more began to use workflow management services such as Trello, Slack, Asana, Bitrix24, Meistertask, and others.
“Such crises give a chance for new growth, a new perspective on things and an opportunity to change the rules of the game,” — says Alexander Davydenko, Chief Innovations Officer of TECHIIA Holding. “If you analyze the behavior of users of online services and gaming platforms, you can use the results to grow existing businesses or create new ones. Quarantine carries on, which means it will proceed to change people’s habits and needs. After returning to normal life, some old habits, goods, and services will become useless. Will we consume more online or will get back to shopping malls and restaurants, all the offline activities as we used to — time will tell.”
A lot of people spend time on a quarantine not only having fun but also trying to spend it for good purposes. This is clear from the significant increase in demand for online courses, business training, tutors, and the purchase of sports equipment that can be used at home while all the gums are closed.
