As the unprecedented outbreak of novel Cornonavirus (COVID-19) grips the world, panic and paranoia have become commonplace. While some want to stock enough sanitizers, others have rushed to buy face masks to fight the pandemic. However, a certain community has a different shopping list and want to make the most of the troubled times. These are called gamers.
With more than 1.8 lakh cases and 7,499 deaths all across the world, COVID-19 forced governments to promote social distancing leading to companies issuing Work From Home (WFH) and shutdowns of schools and colleges. Meaning, a lot more time inside playing video games, and now we are seeing some metrics starting to reflect that.
If numbers from SteamDB, the online digital games marketplace, are to be believed, Steam (an app to distribute games and related media online) had an all-time peak number of users online during the weekend of March 14, hitting a high of 20.3 million simultaneous players on the afternoon of March 15. This is a new record over the previous high of around 19 million, which was only achieved about a month ago.
During this period, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive reached one million concurrent players on March 14. The game only becomes the third, on Steam to achieve the feat after Valve’s DOTA 2 and Ubisoft’s Rainbow Six: Siege. While most schools are expected to be closed anywhere from two weeks to a month, starting around now, experts believe that COVID-19 may be a boost to the video game industry in terms of playtime and possibly even spending.
Meanwhile still taking it baby steps into the industry, the Indian gaming industry has also seen a sudden surge due to recent outbreak of the COVID-19. According to the latest State of Online Gaming research report on worldwide consumers’ gaming behaviours and expectations, Indians are binge-gaming longer than ever before, given a whopping 10 per cent spike in games being played from 2019 which is an average of four hours and eight minutes.
“There is virtually no socializing presently. People don’t even have an option of playing outdoor sports. While the Indian gaming community is still largely into mobile gaming, a lot of game purchases such as Warzone, Forntnite and Call of Duty were made during last 15 days. Telecommunications have also reported surge in traffic during these times,” said Pawan Awasthy, Nvidia, Head Enterprise Marketing Asia South and gaming expert.
The report showed also suggested that global respondents aged 18 to 25 binge-play for an average of 6 hours and 34 minutes, 11 per cent longer than a year ago. Also, nearly one in ten Indians (9 per cent) say that they’ve played for more than 10 hours at a time.
City Game parlours defeat purpose:
A break in the midst of rigorous exams schedule has come as a great relief to students in the city. Resultantly, gaming parlours in the city are making money hand over fist as gamers have lined up waiting for their turns.
Usually this is an off season for us as most exams are round the corner and usually we get 16-20 customers a day. However, from last week the number has gone up to 30-40 gamers and evenings are seeing all systems engaged,” said Sumit Pattnaik, owner and manager of local gaming parlour.
However, amidst the outbreak when limited social distancing is being suggested, these gaming hubs are believed to be carrying potentially high risks of spreading COVID-19. With about 50-60 customers playing at a time, these public gaming platforms are played small spaces without proper ventilation or adequate spacing.
“Apart from poor ventilation and confined spaces, the keyboards and optical mouse come in contact with multiple users in very small amount of time. It’s basically impossible for the owners to clean the system after every single use and thus they are virtually ticking clock of diseases,” said Rashmi Mohanty, a general physician here.
Responding to this, Prem Chandra Chaudhary, Commisioner, Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) said that the matter is being look into and they will issue a notice for closure soon.
PNN