Gaming During COVID-19

Year after year, videogames have achieved higher attention in the mainstream media and have increasingly become America’s pastime. A report by Statista showed that the worldwide videogame market value had more than doubled from 2012 to 2019 and will reach a 200 billion dollar market cap by 2023. While this industry already had momentum behind it, COVID-19 and the stay-at-home orders that it caused really exploded the popularity for all gaming categories. The biggest success in this rise of popularity was the introduction of gaming activities to new customers. Deloitte reported that 43% of millennials surveyed have mentioned trying a new gaming-related activity during the April lockdowns. While COVID-19 has boosted the amount of casual gamers globally and has increased the amount of money they’re willing to spend on streaming services, it has also enticed companies willing to capitalize on the momentum. Tech heavyweights like Facebook have already taken note of this ongoing trend and have made heavy investments into gaming tech, with large emphasis on multi-player games with social interactions. Though, some game developers are now asking if this momentum can continue when COVID-19 cases go down and people have in-person media alternatives to check out. I reached out to Andrew Cooley, who has a background which includes over 15 years in multiple levels of esports, ranging from: competing at a pro/semi-pro level, coaching, player management, and esports businesses management. Prior to co-founding Esports Performance Academy (EPA), he also founded State of Mind Gaming and was President of GG Esports Academy. From 2018 to 2019, Andrew and his staff sent 12 players and one coach to the professional level in League of Legends and Overwatch. Within EPA, Andrew and his team strive to raise the standards across developmental esports by implementing holistic infrastructure and coaching certifications in their work with academic institutions, camps, individuals, and teams.  

Stickiness is defined as the ratio of daily active users and monthly active users, indicating a game’s ability to retain players over a month timeline. What do you think gives a game a high retention rate and is there any specific genre, platform, or characteristic that will retain players after COVID-19?

I think you see all these articles come out since the start of COVID showing that Steam has experienced their highest concurrent player base of all time. There’s also all these different new generation platforms that are coming out and I don’t think that one necessarily has an advantage over the other. I think that everybody’s personality is different. That’s why there’s so many games that exist, because everything’s so appealing to everybody else. I think that the best thing that’s going to cause retention is just the exposure because of being able to work remotely from home and being able to have a little bit more free time potentially. You don’t have to worry about being micromanaged and looking over your shoulder and stuff like that like at work. You can get your work done and then you have time, you play some games which I think helps raise the interest. So overall, I don’t think a specific genre will come out with an edge after this pandemic.

It seems that Hollywood lacks a real meaningful strategy for videogame participation where they limit themselves to simply licensing out intellectual property rights. Disney, a company well known for strict creative control, outsourced new releases to companies like Insomniac and Respawn Entertainment. Will COVID-19 push large entertainment conglomerates like Disney to stop relying on third parties for videogames and are there reasons that this transition can be difficult?

I think that it’s definitely, if nothing else, prompted a lot more conversation around potential collaborations across new fields for videogames. Brands, like Disney or Marvel, may choose to partner with teams like Liquid for esports. I’m not sure if these conversations signify that they’ll start in-housing other areas for gaming. I really think that there’s probably a disconnect between understanding the culture and between understanding the interest. They’re going to have to get the right people and put them in the right positions, which just means “should we go buy out a studio and then just put it under something like Disney”. You’ve seen Amazon jump into game development recently with them having a studio and the capital to fund it. The conversations are definitely ongoing and I think that it will be one of those things where it’s a hit or miss opportunity. Some people will get it while others won’t move forward because they don’t think that it’s going to work out too well. That transition can be tough because studios might benefit from in-housing but the economies of scale don’t justify it. Do they really net that much more? Is it just a marginal difference to where it’s not really worth the man hours invested and the legal nightmare of going through with it?

Plague Inc., a 2012 game released by Ndemic Creations, saw a huge renewed interest during COVID-19 where worried citizens used the game to placate their fears. Meanwhile, Animal Crossing: New Horizons saw explosive popularity due to the game’s focus on ordinary life activities and social networking. Is there any observations you’ve made about the escapism that videogames offer and do you draw a line where videogames go from a social hobby to a harmful vice?

I think that, as with anything, too much of something can be bad. Too much water can even be bad for you. When I was growing up, I definitely played way too many video games. I probably didn’t play in the healthiest manner, which is kind of the reason that we’re so adamant about doing it the right way with our business. There are some things like video game addiction that can occur where it is harmful to yourself, it is harmful to your livelihood, and you are neglecting other aspects of your life. I think that it can be a very good social hobby and can be a very good way to mentally decompress from a stressful day at work. But at some point, there’s a difference between competing in esports and just constantly being addicted to a game. I always liked to correlate it to the time my mom asked if I was just addicted to videogames. I replied “is Michael Jordan addiction to basketball? Is Troy Eckman addicted to football?” which brings up the debate on how other sports are different. Athletes can be addicted to their competition, but it’s manifested in a healthier manner than just straight video game addiction where it is harmful, leading to the neglecting of every aspect of your life. Video game addiction can exist in Esports but manifests itself in that you have an obsession with performing well.

I can tell you firsthand, whenever I was competing at the highest levels and being obsessed to the point where you dream about the game and you talk in your sleep about the game. I think that it’s more of a fixation on your performance, but there’s a healthy way to do that. My business references something called fractured coaching versus holistic coaching. Fractured coaching is where you sit and you grind the game for 14 hours a day which is not really helpful. Holistic coaching is where you’re focusing on the balance of proper sleep, health, nutrition, and wellness in conjunction with the technical and the strategic aspects of the game. If you balance it in that manner then even if you are obsessed with your performance, you’re attacking it from a healthy perspective versus just strictly trying to grind away at the game. Part of our role every day is still trying to break down those misconceptions of what it is to be a pro esports player. It’s not drinking Mountain Dew and eating Doritos and pizza all day. The reason that stuff is so important is that in traditional sports athletes have their bodies that they’re able to utilize to set them up for success. Your body being optimized isn’t really a part of esports, but being physically fit is great and it enables your cognitive function to be substantially better than whenever you’re unhealthy. It enables you to think more quickly and then to your point to have better hand-eye coordination and to be able to strategize, react, and communicate more quickly.

NCAA Football didn’t see a huge progression until ESPN secured the rights for scheduling and drafting of bowls to fill its schedule. Do you see any needed steps for ESPORTS to boost in popularity and is there any unique problems that separate ESPORTS from other live events that proceeded it?

I think that the live events for esports have just blown out of the water over the last several years with production value improving more each year. I think that even traditional sports is starting to take away some of the lessons learned from esports to be a little bit more engaging.  I think that overall you see the spikes and the interest in esports and in gaming whenever there’s these big collaborations between the mainstream outlets. Moments like Drake playing with Ninja create a new attitude towards gaming. It doesn’t make you an outcast to do stuff in gaming. Big publishers like Riot with League of Legends typically do a pretty solid job at the production and at the entertainment value of these live events. Riot was scheduled to have part of the playoffs for the finals here in Dallas in the spring and then COVID canceled everything. That was kind of a bummer but Dream Hack Dallas is a really big event and thousands attend. It’s over the course of multiple days and there’s tournaments for many different titles, where a big convention presents gaming and for esports. With turnouts, it can depend on a lot of variables as far as the popularity of the title, the amount of titles, and the prestige of the organizers.