The impact of COVID-19 on the development of the twitch streamers and video game industry.

Zakhar Sheyko

ENC1102

Dr. Steffen Guenzel

04/11/2021
Introduction

Last year the world was attacked by the COVID-19 pandemic that affected different

events and lives of billions of individuals in the world. The virus was rapidly spreading, and

according to World Health Organization, on March 7, COVID-19 cases surpassed the line of 100

thousand infected people. This amount alone was already a significant number of infected

people, but only 4 months later, on July 12, the same organization makes their weekly

announcement, where they declare that the number of cases rose to the count more than 12.5

million total cases (WHO). The number of people increased 125 times and it happened even

though the governments of different countries declared a lockdown, that prevented people from

spreading the virus at the same speed. During these hard lockdown times, people started to

search for a way to spend their time at home and one of the best decisions they could find was

videogames “Verizon reported a 75% increase in video game activity during the first week of

quarantine earlier this month” (Javad). However, video games were not the only thing to see

raise in the number of users in Digital Media, “Live streaming platforms like YouTube Gaming

and Twitch saw a 10% increase in viewership” (Javad), and it happened only during the first

week of quarantine. The data is very encouraging, but how game companies and live platform

broadcasters, especially twitch streamers, benefited and grew from it?

To find out, I am conducting this research which focuses on the amount of time people

started to spend playing games or watching live streams during the COVID-19 pandemic and

how companies grew with its help. The purpose of the research will be to answer the research

question: “How the pandemic has influenced the game industry and twitch/youtube streamers,

and how have they grown from it”?

 This study will be significant towards the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on

videogame companies and twitch streamers and to show how their users and profits changed

during this hard time. Analyzing these numbers is very important because it can help people

understand the real potential of video games, live broadcasting platforms and understand that

games have a huge ever-growing community around them.

Methodology

The main information source for my research is the survey that I have conducted. The

participants of this survey were people of different ages, majors, and experiences. In order to find

participants for the survey, I texted some of my friends on social media, send messages to

different Discord servers, and asked UCF students to fill out a small form. The questions were

mostly focused on their experience with games, stream services, and the time they on these

activities.

As a secondary source of the research, I have decided to use sources with similar purposes

conducted by many organizations, news articles, and some statistics from analytics sites. All

these helpful resources try to inform people of the changes happening to video games and

streams during the pandemic.

The chosen sources can be found separate from each other. However, this decision was

made in order to see the topic from three different angles: changes in the videogame industry,

changes in the live broadcasting industry, and people’s interest in digital entertainment services.

One source can provide us with the raise in founds of companies, other can explain the

perspectives and show the most promising technologies in these spheres. And some can just

discuss the impression of players and game designers about the situation around the pandemic.
Results

I sent the conducted survey to approximately 80 up to 100 people overall; however, the

answer percentage was not as good as I expected, only 21 people filled the survey, so the

information in the quiz might be a little different from the numbers one might see in other

sources, but they are still representative. The first 2 questions of the survey asked participants to

tell me if they consider themselves a gamer or not and their major if they have one. 57.1% of the

people said that they consider themselves a gamer and the rest 42.9% said that they cannot

consider themselves a gamer (see fig. 1), this question is very important because it is a

foundation for the future questions about gaming streams and videogames overall. As for majors,

there was not any leading major, primarily because I asked people of different spheres and

interests to complete the survey.

 Figure 1 A pie-chart and short-answer present the answers to questions 1-2.

The third question was about the number of years participants played video games. As

you might notice in Figure 2, 73,7% of participants played games for more than 5 years that in

combination with the information in Figure 1, that has information about only 57.1% of people

considering themselves a gamer, show us that even though a person might have played games for

a long time, he still cannot say that he is proficient enough in it. Also, this can be confirmed by

taking other answers to the survey, where only 10.6% of participants said that they have been

playing games for less than 3 years that might confirm that they are not gamers.
 Figure 2 A pie-chart presents the answer to the question 2.

The fourth question asked participants about them watching any streams on twitch or

YouTube platforms. As you might notice on Figure 3, 85,7% of people said that they have

watched streams during COVID-19, then only 14,3% of the rest said that they did not do it. If we

once again go back to the Figure 1, we might see that there is a tremendous difference in

percentage of people being a gamer and watching stream, amount of people who usually watch

live translation during the pandemic is almost 1.5 times higher then gamers. This comparison

confirms the previously collected statistics “highlight a consequent increase for Italian, French

and Spanish (between 30% and 50%)” (Narassiguin and Garnès 4). This difference in numbers

might be also confirmed by the “there is an increase of almost 40% for music content”

(Narassiguin and Garnès 7) and “Just Chatting activities, where the streamers simply interact

with their communities, show an interesting increase of 25%” (Narassiguin and Garnès 7). Both

of these statistics provide us with the total raise of about 65% in total that is close to the

difference between statistics in Figure 1 and Figure 3.

 Figure 3 A pie-chart presenting the answer to question 4.
The fifth question asked was about people spending more time watching streams during

the pandemic situation. According to Figure 4, we can see that only 45% of participants started

to spend more time watching streams, and for the rest, 55%, COVID-19 did not affect their

watch hours. However, only 20% of the people who increased their watch hours did not get

bored of live broadcasts. This way, the received statistic almost confirms the statement “U.S.

video game usage during peak hours saw an increase of 75 percent since the quarantine first went

into effect early in the month. Meanwhile, video streaming also increased by 12 percent”

(Shanley).

Figure 4 A pie-chart presenting the answers to question 5.

 The sixth question was also about stream services, but this time I asked participants to tell

me about the amount of time they have started spending on watching live broadcasts a week.

According to Figure 5, only 20% of participants do not watch streams, 45% spend less than 3

hours a week (purple and green charts are the same thing), 20% spend from 6 to 12 hours a week

and only 15% spend more then 12 hours a week. According to these statistics, we can say that

people mostly watch streams when they have a free time and do not usually watch full

broadcasts. Anyway, we can see that 80 of participants started to spend more time on streams,

and even for this small amount of people, the amount of time they could spend watching streams

increased approximately by 86 hours a week. This way the provided survey confirms the

possibility of a growth of hours spend watching live broadcast from 1.2 million hours a month in

March 2020 up to 2.1 million hours a month in March 2021 (see fig. 6).

Figure 5 A pie-chart chart presenting the answers to question 6.

 Figure 6 Comparison of hours in the beginning of pandemic and a year later.
The seventh question is about gaming itself. In this question I asked people about the

increment of time they spend on videogames during the COVID-19. 52,4% of people said that

they did not start spending more time on videogames and 47,6% did (see fig.7).Even according

to this statistic, we can see an increasement in hours spent on videogames during the pandemic.

This nearly 50% increase in players can be noticed if we compare a pick online in a game called

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on October 1st 2019 when pick online was 622679 players to

the pick online of 1214846 players of the same game on April 25th 2020 (Top 20 Most Popular

Steam Games (2015-2020), 10:10 - 11:22).

Figure 7 A pie-chart chart presenting the answers to question 7.

 The eighth question was about the increasement of time people spend on videogames

during COVID-19. As we can see on Figure 8, 23,8% of people did not increase their time for

playing games and 9,5% do not play games at all, but the 66,7% of people showed a quite

interesting result. 19% of people increased their time for video games from 1 to 3 hours a week,

14,3% of people added from 3 to 6 hours a week 9,5% added from 6 to 12, that is the same

amount of people who does not play games, and finally a tremendous 23,8% of people increased

their time spent in video games during the pandemic by more then 12 hours a week! This

discovery can be improved by some sources. First of all, I would like to remind that “Video

games are being prescribed as a recommended treatment for our ongoing homebound existence,

brought on by the coronavirus pandemic” (Snider), that means that even WHO (World Health

Organization) found games to be helpful during the pandemic, that gave games the increase in a

gamer base. Research made by Şener and Yalçın states “While the average number of people

actively playing games in 2019 was 4.4 million, this number increased by 25% in 2020 to 5.5

million” (5), and this fact can be established after reviewing the Figure 8, where almost 24% of

participants started to spend far more time playing games weekly.

Figure 8 A pie-chart chart presenting the answers to question 8.

 References

World Health Organization. “WHO Statement on Cases of COVID-19 Surpassing 100 000.”

World Health Organization, World Health Organization, 7 Mar. 2020,

www.who.int/news/item/07-03-2020-who-statement-on-cases-of-covid-19-surpassing-100-

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Health Organization, World Health Organization, 12 July 2020, 10:00 CEST,

www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200712-covid-19-

sitrep-174.pdf?sfvrsn=5d1c1b2c_2.

Javad, Author: Jonah. “ESports and Gaming Industry Thriving as Video Games Provide Escape

from Reality during Coronavirus Pandemic.” Wfaa.com, Wfaa, 28 Mar. 2020,

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94dd60a8a383.

Narassiguin, Anil, and Vivien Garnès. “The Influence of COVID-19 on Twitch Audience : How

Lockdown Measures Affect Live Streaming Usage ?” Upfluence-Common, 30 Mar. 2020,

upfluence-common.s3.amazonaws.com/Covid19_Twitch.pdf.

Shanley, Patrick. “Twitch Breaks Various Viewership Records Amid Coronavirus Quarantine.”
The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter, 1 Apr. 2020,
www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/twitch-breaks-viewership-records-coronavirus-
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TwitchTracker. “Twitch Statistics & Charts.” TwitchTracker, 10 Apr. 2021,

twitchtracker.com/statistics.
RankingMan. “Top 20 Most Popular Steam Games (2015-2020).” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Oct.
2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP7HG1Jl0m0&ab_channel=RankingMan.

Snider, Mike. “Video Games Can Be a Healthy Social Pastime during Coronavirus Pandemic.”
USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 29 Mar. 2020,
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during-coronavirus-pandemic/2932976001/.

Şener, Deniz, et al. “The Impact of COVID-19 on the Video Game Industry.” SSRN, SSRN, 16
Jan. 2021, papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3766147.