By Luis Berg

October 5, 2020

   Anyone could have guessed that a pandemic forcing people to stay in their homes would cause an increase in gaming but no one predicted how much it would increase. Nintendo reported a 428% increase in this quarter’s sales, the Japanese company made 1.37 billion dollars in profit this quarter, smashing analysis estimates.

     Gaming has allowed millions of people to talk and compete with friends while social distancing. In 2020, more than ¾ of Americans play video games daily and 65% play on multiple devices. With hundreds of games with new characters and weapons to unlock, gamers are hooked, spending at least 14 hrs a week. Some gamers spend 10 hrs a day without even getting out of their seat.

    Across the world, there are double digit increases, and it’s not only people playing games; Twitch and YouTube have seen significant increases in viewership of gamers and streamers have never had so many subscribers and views on their videos.

     According to Verizon, during peak hours, the amount of people gaming has gone up 75% since the lockdown started and views and subscriptions to gamers have gone up 15-20%. Even competitive gaming, like esports, has seen a huge increase in viewership and demand for more competitions. Twitch, the biggest streaming site for gamers, saw 1.5 billions hours watched in one month. There has been so much success during the pandemic for these giant video game companies like Twitch, owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. People wonder will they be able to keep this succes up or if there will be a major decrease in video game consumption. MHS Students’ Garen Harper and Waylon Rose discuss how quarantine has affected how much they play video games They both noticed a significant increase in there time spent gaming saying “it’s just great when your bored and stuck at home play some games with my friends” 

   No one knows for certain where the video game industry will go, but most analysts predict a continued growth. While they might not see such substantial growth again, the people who got their first console or started playing again during the pandemic could be customers for life. With new games constantly being released, there is a never ending supply of new levels and new things to discover and collect. If one game on the Xbox or PS4 costs $60, then you can spend hundreds on upgrading your character or getting new equipment for your characters, and just when you unlock everything a new game comes out. It looks like video game companies will continue to make a profit and feed into the unquenchable hunger the world has for video games.