During the Corona crisis, most of us has spent more hours behind the walls than we usually do. As a result, the need for online entertainment has exploded over the past few months, according to the statistics from SSB.
Several have spent their time looking at new entertainment options to avoid loneliness and isolation. This has led to tremendous growth for many online entertainment platforms, such as streaming services and online gaming.
The entertainment services provided offline, such as cinema, theaters, concert venues and bingo halls, have been closed for the past several months, as a result of the Corona pandemic crisis. For many companies, this has led to a shrunk economy and great uncertainty about the future. But for the streaming services and online gaming websites, the Corona crisis has led to a huge increase in usage. And this increasing popularity trend does not only apply to Norway and Nordic region.
More consumers in both Europe and the USA are increasingly trying streaming services, looking for ways to entertain themselves at home.
Both new and established players benefit in the market
The average person is streaming eight hours of content each day, double the number of hours from before the pandemic rapidly spread in the U.S., according to data collected from surveys conducted by market research firm OnePoll.
The increase is not limited to streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon and HBO. For startup streaming services in Europe, corona lockdown has offered an opportunity to catch consumers.
Talking to Sifted, founder of Molotov TV, and AlloCiné Jean-David Blanc notes that people are spending a lot more time on screens because of confinement, and they’re also trying new things, exploring different content and new ways of accessing it.
From bingo halls to online gaming
But it’s not just streaming services that are benefiting from the surge in appetite from consumers who are looking for new way of entertainment in lockdown. Online gaming industry is one of the domains more and more people have immersed themselves in.
In the USA, online gaming services had an increase of nearly 62%, according to ABC News. Online entertainment and gaming companies are seeing COVID-19 surges in revenue up to three times at global level, writes Telecoms.com
The situation is similar in Norway. More and more Norwegians have, during the crisis, discovered the online gaming. Online entertainment and online gaming sites, have become a regular activity for many adults. Especially in the absence of closed bingo halls, the strict gaming regulations in the country has been softened. Norway’s gaming authority has allowed bingo halls to operate in an online-only capacity, suspending regulations that require a physical draw to take place, as part of measures to mitigate the impact of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19).
Looking to the statistics from both Norway and the world, there are several takeaways from the recent spike in gaming that indicate a really big transformation. This is a transformation which the pandemic has reminded traditional entertainment channels and venues that there remains an addressable market of highly engaged consumers and online gaming is becoming more mainstream. The earliest proof point is the statistics and Norway’s allowing online bingo halls first time in the history.
