The pandemic of coronavirus It has negatively affected almost all industries, but the situation with video games is unique. Although the temporary closure of workspaces has hampered development, has altered the plans of some companies, and has led to the cancellation of multiple events, the video game consumption has been amplified. Records of games sold in digital format were broken in March. Some brands have explained that they are seeing new players, and according to EA and Activision, are here to stay.
"There seems to be a possibility that once the isolation ends at home, it could be a long time before people return to normal as we knew them," he said. Dennis Durkin, CFO of Activision Blizzard, at a meeting with shareholders this Tuesday. "We think there is a potential acceleration to structural change that we have seen in consumer entertainment, consumption patterns that we have already seen in video games."
The manager, in the statements collected by Wccftech, admits that the remote social entertainment, such as video games, "obviously would benefit" of this situation. "We have already seen this with the younger generation of consumers, where video games are a more integrated part of their social entertainment. Times like these will make that activity, we believe, even more popular."
EA: "Many new players" are coming to video games
Andrew Wilson, CEO of Electronic Arts, also pointed out this Tuesday that there are "many, many new players who are coming and discovering how wonderful the games are, and the fun of the games, and how they can, in a spectacular way, bring people together". The CEO expects that people who "have invested this time and forged relationships with friends through new games they are playing will continue to be engaged for the long term."
Both Durkin and Wilson aim keep those new players. "Obviously we are trying to maintain this and welcome as many players as possible to our ecosystem … and offer them a captivating experience that will hopefully make them fans in the long term," Durkin said. For his part, the CEO of EA says that "fully support" the players "through this phase of COVID-19".
Activision Blizzard executive speculates, based on data from Asia, that the Player growth in the West will remain relatively stable: "We don't have good data right now on what happens to consumption when people return from isolation at home. But we have seen in Asia that the strong moment continues, even when they begin to return" to normal.
In late April, Phil Spencer, head of the video game division at Microsoft, made sure that they don't want to take advantage of the moment: "We want to be very reasoned and not exploit the situation. We are not implementing any different business tactics or other things. We are just trying to keep all the services, try to keep the games enjoyable, keep our networks secure."
