With sports in lockdown, does COVID-19 herald the victory of video gaming? This week's World Vs Virus podcast
In lockdown, players gonna play Image: REUTERS/Jillian Kitchener
- Gaming and esports get a huge boost from the coronavirus lockdown.
- Esports pioneeer Mike Sepso says gaming will replace some physical sports.
- COVID-19 accelerates growth of what is already biggest entertainment sector.
- World Versus Virus is a weekly podcast from the World Economic Forum.
- Subscribe on Apple or Spotify to get it every week.
"Before, when I had my full time job, I only really got to play maybe two, three hours a night. But now my whole day is clear, I pretty much just play all day."
That's 20-year-old New Yorker Mercutio, telling World Vs Virus why video gaming is thriving during the pandemic.
In the first week of the lockdown in US states and cities, internet traffic for gaming jumped 75 percent, said industry entrepreneur Mike Sepso, citing data from telecoms provider Verizon. "When you tell kids in the developed world that they have to stay home and they can't go to school, they're going to play a lot of video games."
But the appeal of gaming is much more than just killing time for bored teenagers. In this week's podcast, we hear how gamers were much better prepared for the pandemic than the rest of us, as so much of their lives is already lived out in the online social spaces that non-gamers have been scrabbling to create through platforms such as Zoom.
And with real-world sports on hold, Sepso, CEO of esports company Vindex, says COVID-19 could accelerate the pace at which esports - televised, professional gaming - grabs market share from traditional, physical games.
"If you're talking about missing an entire baseball season in America, if you're talking about not having the second half of the NBA season - no finals, and potentially not starting the season again later this year, you might wind up in a situation where enough time goes by without that sport that people start to develop other fan and viewing behaviours, and might gravitate towards esports."
Also on WVV: the race for a vaccine
Hundreds of countries, companies and organisations are working together around the world in the hunt for a vaccine to solve the COVID-19 pandemic.
We hear from Seth Berkley (CEO, GAVI), Stéphane Bancel (CEO, Moderna) and Paul Stoffels (Chief Science Officer, Johnson & Johnson), speaking on the World Economic Forum's COVID Action Platform.
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