Lockdowns boost video games consumption across Asia-Pacific

The popularity of video games has increased during the various lockdowns in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a recent audience measurement by media measurement and analytics company Comscore.

A blog post titled Video games in Asia: Locked and loaded by Alex Gevers, Senior Insights Manager of Comscore, said that the relative importance of video games has increased during the lockdown period in countries such as India, compared to other alternative forms of entertainment.

The company measured video-game audiences’ sizes during the January-May 2020 period in Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

With regard to video-game audiences during the pandemic, it measured the number of unique individuals across both desktop and mobile devices who visited sites or apps where they could play online video games or find information about video games.

It said that though movement restrictions were relaxed in many countries in the Asia-Pacific region and economic activity had resumed by May, audience levels for the gaming category remained high in many countries.

“So, while there’s a possibility that the increased popularity gained during the lockdown could subside somewhat as life returns to normal, it seems that some of the increase will last,” it said.

Games vs entertainment

To compare video games to alternative forms of entertainment, the company measured the size of audiences of sites and apps in the ‘entertainment’ category and compared it with that of the ‘games’ category. The ‘entertainment’ category included music and movie streaming services and entertainment news.

It said that for countries such as India, Indonesia and Malaysia, video games audiences reach nearly two-third of the size of entertainment audiences.

This data demonstrates the importance and potential of video games as a marketing channel, it said.

( Data visualisation: A J Vinayak )

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