Long-term changes in behaviour due to coronavirus could make gaming, e-commerce boom sustainable, experts say
- Games revenue on all platforms in China was about 30 per cent higher in the first quarter of 2020 than the same period last year, according to Niko Partners
- In 2019 only 4 per cent of overall retail spending in Hong Kong was conducted online, compared to 24 per cent on the Chinese mainland
While the Covid-19 pandemic has drastically altered the way people work, shop and play in the short term, gaming and online shopping companies are counting on longer term changes in habits to propel more sustainable growth in these industries, according to speakers at the China Conference hosted by the South China Morning Post.
Games could become a new social space in a time when society is lacking in physical interaction, according to Yat Siu, chairman and co-founder of Hong Kong-based gaming developer Animoca Brands and founder and CEO of Outblaze.
Players are heavily invested with friends and communities in games like Nintendo’s Animal Crossing and Epic Games’ Fortnite, which makes it a hard habit to give up, Siu said during a panel discussion at the conference in Hong Kong on Friday.
Gaming companies have implemented more social features in their products that could even challenge the way platforms such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram do social, according to Siu. “It’s really about building communities,” he added.
Such behavioural changes are hard to predict because there has been nothing comparable in the past to look at, Siu said. “One thing that is definitely different between this and other pandemics on a global scale, is the length this pandemic has been going on, which means that the ability to create these habits and patterns is much greater.”
The gaming industry has been one of the major beneficiaries of the stay-at-home orders issued globally during the Covid-19 pandemic, when millions of people have been forced to move many of their daily activities online.