Videogames are a bigger industry than sports and movies combined, thanks to the pandemic

Videogames have grown to resemble competition-based, interactive movies, and the COVID-19 pandemic has propelled the industry to make more money than movies and sports combined.

“I do think there will be a deceleration as soon as effective, cheap, globally available vaccines get out there over the course of 2021, but I’m quite sure at the end of 2021 there will still be billions of potential people that will need vaccines,” Lewis Ward, gaming research director at IDC, told MarketWatch in an interview. “So, my deceleration happens in 2022.”

A big reason why mobile game revenue is expected to widen its already large lead over console- and PC-based games in 2020 is a matter of economics. Mobile phones, which serve as the primary online connection for billions of people world-wide, can be cheap — or free with a usage plan — unlike dedicated gaming consoles such as Sony’s PlayStation 5, Microsoft’s new Xbox line and Nintendo Co.’s 7974, -0.28% NTDOY, -1.62% Switch, which can run from $300 to $500 before supply-constrained markups.

PC-gaming revenue would have been larger if not for widespread iCafe closures in China due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ward said. ICafes are a popular option in China for PC gamers who can rent top-of-the-line machines they could not otherwise afford, and socialize with friends in person. All three of the largest publicly traded U.S. videogame publishers have outperformed the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.21% in 2020, with shares of Activision Blizzard up 49%, Electronic Arts Inc. EA, -1.12% up 30%, and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. TTWO, +0.04% up 64%, compared with the S&P 500’s 14% gain.

“They’re the ones who are kind of leading the way on appealing to a bunch of different ways of engagement,” Piscatella said.

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Sounds like EA Sports ticker should be running up right now

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Videogames are a bigger industry than movies and North American sports combined, thanks to the pandemicGlobal videogame revenue is expected to hit $179.7 billion in 2020 — and the new PS5 and Xbox Series X consoles and mobile gaming should keep that momentum going. thanks That’s if people go back to work! It’s pretty silly to think people are just spending foolishly on video gaming stuff when businesses are closing! 29 retailers closed in NYC alone. Liberal cities don’t care about their people just power! These consoles are expensive for folks
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