In 2020, video games made more money than movies and sports combined

With everyone stuck at home in 2020, obviously movies and sports were going to take a hit. But you know what everyone WAS doing?

In 2019, the movie industry made $100 billion for the first time, buoyed by big releases like The Lion King, Frozen II, Star Wars: Episode IX and Avengers: Endgame (man, Disney just keeps cleaning up). That was impressive, but obviously, revenues plummeted in 2020 as theaters around the world closed thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, with Variety estimating that the film industry could see a 71.5% box office drop this year.

Meanwhile, before COVID, it was estimated that North American sports would bring in $75 billion in 2020. That didn’t happen either. But in that gap, video games stepped up in a big way. Mobile, console and PC gaming has been on the rise for a while anyway, but in 2020, they made $179.7 billion. That’s not just more than movies and sports combined in 2020, when both were hobbled by the pandemic, but more than movies and sports combined in 2019, when they were thriving.

This is according to MarketWatch, which credits the rise of video gaming to a few things. To start, the pandemic shut down other forms of entertainment and made video games one of the few easily enjoyable options. Also, there are so many ways for video games to extract money from people now. It’s not just about buying a game and playing it; there are subscription-based games with recurring payments, and millions engage in micro-transactions every day. And even though mobile gaming is where the most money comes from, new consoles like the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 4 will bring in yet more revenue.

Overall, the video game industry made 20% more money this year than last year, although International Data Corporation gaming research director Lewis Ward does expect things to level off eventually. “I do think there will be a deceleration as soon as effective, cheap, globally available vaccines get out there over the course of 2021, but I’m quite sure at the end of 2021 there will still be billions of potential people that will need vaccines,” he said. “So, my deceleration happens in 2022.”

Given what 2020 was like for a lot of people, I’m not surprised at these numbers. I do wonder where TV fits in, though…

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h/t SyFy Wire