Lockdown sees rise in ‘Covideogamers’

Lockdown has massively changed the gaming community across the world, with a new breed of gamer emerging – the ‘Covideogamer’.

Pre lockdown, the average gamer spent around 13 hours a week playing their favourites. This increased by 5 hours during lockdown with Brits spending 18 hours or more exploring new worlds online – that’s equivalent to 39 whole days spent gaming.

Lockdown has given us all more time to kill, and today the split between male and female video gamers is strictly 50-50.

The recent State of Online Gaming 2020 research report highlighted the latest findings in an ongoing series of consumer surveys about online habits and opinions.

In the UK, 54 per cent of men and women play a game most days, lowering stress and connecting with others being two of the primary motivators.

Younger gamers spend loads of time playing while self-isolating and spend around two hours a month watching other people play online – a pastime that has increased since lockdown began.

The pandemic has also created a whole new subgenre of gamers known as Covideogamers, who exclusively started gaming during lockdown.

Compared to 36 per cent of existing gamers between the ages of 18 – 34, Covideogamers now make up 46 per cent of the population in the same age group.

35 per cent of these new gamers have also admitted it’s so relaxing and stress-relieving, they’re going to start playing more, long after lockdown ends.

Games like FIFA 21, Call of Duty, Animal Crossing and Last of Us were some of the most played games of 2020, with 3 in 10 people skipping showers and meals to play uninterrupted.

Almost 6 in 10 Brits also admit to losing sleep due to gaming sessions.

FIFA 21 dominated in 2020 as one of the most anticipated games in the UK, with around 14 games selling per second in the UK last year.

The top game sales of 2020 included:

1. FIFA 21 (2.18 million)

2. Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (1.4 million)

3. Grand Theft Auto 5 (1.1 million)

4. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (800,000)

5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (660,000)

6. The Last of Us Part II (530,000)

7. NBA 2K20 (480,000)

8. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege (430,000)