There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on every business globally. While many sectors struggle to serve clients digitally and maintain demand until the crisis passes, the digital entertainment industry has found itself better positioned to deal with the upheaval and is thriving in some cases.
As hundreds of millions of people throughout the world remain indoors, they turn to digital entertainment. As the world hunkered down, gaming exploded as people sought ways to pass the time when they could not go outside.
Impact of covid-19 on the videogame industry
We saw massive growth in the number of active gamers and users daily. Even though the games affected people’s social and psychological development during the pandemic, they boosted the gaming industry.
The notion that giant gaming firms like Electronic Arts, Activision-Blizzard, Ubisoft, Capcom, and Take-Two boosted their share values. The stock values of gaming firms were also raised because of the increased demand for video games.
According to the study by Ko conducted in 2020, “With all of the precautions and challenges, video games have become a fantastic alternative for escaping these difficulties.”
Literature review
The Covid19 outbreak, which began in early 2020, had a devastating impact on the health and entertainment industries. To prevent the spread of the pandemic, cinemas and theatres were closed. Many people have resorted to video games to relieve stress and have fun. From March 16 to March 22, a total of 1.58 million physical games were sold worldwide. This 82 percent spike is attributable to the release of popular Nintendo games, says Gough (2020). According to a joint analysis by Stream Elements and Arsenal gg, global viewership of game streams on Twitch and YouTube Gaming climbed by 10% and 15%, respectively. The games developed by Steam owner Valve in 2012 (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, an online first-person shooter), appear to have profited the most from increased involvement, breaking the all-time high record with 1,023.2290 concurrent players, breaking its record of April 2016. That makes it one of the most-watched championships in e-sports history.
The pandemic’s conditions have been a massive success for video gaming industry titans like Microsoft and Activision. Microsoft reported in April that the number of Game Pass members had surpassed 10 million. It observed a 130 percent increase in multiplayer activity among these subscribers in March 2021 and April 2021. According to statistics given by Stream Elements to The Post by Arsenal. gg, the most famous video game streaming platform, Twitch, had 1.49 billion game hours watched in April 2021, an increase of 50% from March 2021. In March, Steam, a central PC gaming platform, surpassed its all-time high concurrent user count of more than 20 million March. According to research conducted by Smith in 2020, the sales of video games were closed to $1.6 billion, which is 35% more than the yearly sale.
This growth can be seen in the game industry all across the world.
WinZo Games, an Indian-based gaming startup, enjoyed the greater engagement of users i.e., three times and a 30% increased traffic. Furthermore, games played with many users had a 35% higher usage rate. This growth has led the number of online users to skyrocket throughout the epidemic period. Similarly, Paytm First Games, an Indian mobile-based online gaming business, claimed a nearly 200 percent gain. Another report by Kritika Premnath Amin 2020 says that 75,000 additional users were added to the user base during the pandemic.
Increase in time spent playing video games.
According to a March 2020 poll, video gamers in the United States spent 45 percent more time playing video games during the lockdown, causing global expenditure on digital games to reach USD 10 billion, the biggest monthly figure ever. This figure helps the gaming industry to rise exponentially.
Playing in the Cloud
Even before the pandemic, cloud-based services were the fastest-growing sector. Netflix has a market capitalization of around $180 billion. The opportunity to be the equivalent of that in games is worth chasing. Therefore, it is expected from Sony and Microsoft to organize their catalogs under one tent for the convenience of a monthly membership of gamers where they can access a portfolio of games akin to Netflix. This will be a significant milestone for the gaming business.
The Free-to-Play Model Will Expand
There’s a chance that free-to-play will solidify its position as the dominant market. It’s the norm on mobile, but it’s making its way into PC and console games, and there will be more cross-platform games with a free-to-play feature in the future. Call of Duty: Warzone, which was recently released, is a fantastic example. In these games, players can spend as much money as they wish. Free-to-play with virtual goods economies will allow the industry to quadruple and maybe triple in size over the next decade. In a way, the pandemic provides a petri dish for all of the right things to happen to accelerate it.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that the videogame business (like all others) confronts a variety of obstacles as a result of COVID-19. Still, it has managed to thrive with robust software sales and an ever-growing client base, keeping both virtual and real economies alive. The industry’s forward-thinking attitude to technology, as well as its flexibility and agility, have been critical to its success to date, and it is these attributes that will allow it to prosper in the months ahead. Apart from the industry’s growth, the enthusiast gamers also shop online for cheap custom sports jerseys and cheap gaming jerseys to create an environment of the game zone.
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