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It’s difficult to find a silver lining to a global pandemic, but the gaming industry is winning big out of Covid-19.
The economic fallout (no pun intended) caused by Covid-19 has shaken up entire industries and changed consumer behaviours drastically.
People are spending more time than ever before within the confines of their own homes, and as the notion of a second lockdown is mulled over, digital media is likely to become an even more valuable commodity approaching the holiday season – just in time for the release of next gen consoles.
Engagement levels for video calling services, ecommerce shopping, digital subscriptions, and streaming platforms have soared, but there is one industry that eclipses all of these as the most expansive industry of 2020 – gaming.
With a purported value of $145bn in 2019 compared to $42bn from the box office and $20 bn from music, gaming has become the chief provider for digital entertainment and is well on course to surpass revenues of $200 billion by 2023. Providing people with a sense of community in a time when it’s hard to come by, complete with whimsical distractions from the real world, gaming has seen huge success in lockdown.
While tech companies across the globe were scrabbling around during April to adjust their enterprises to the new landscape imposed on them, it was business as usual for gaming. In expos over the last few years, publishers have regularly highlighted an industrywide desire to shift the future of the gaming toward digital monetisation and away from physical titles.
By the time lockdown hit, established services like Game Pass and PSN were already booming and those who hadn’t yet bought into the concept of monthly payments for hundreds of games soon did. Now, Games Pass currently boasts over 15 million monthly active users, and Sony are readying a digital only edition of the PlayStation 5 for November.
