After a relentless climb that lasted more than a decade, major players in the video-game industry saw their stocks pause for a breather in 2018. Keen interest in free-to-play games and the battle royale genre, including PUBG's PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds and Epic Games' Fortnite, had many investors wondering if the epic run of video-game stocks had come to an end.
However, those fears were put to rest in 2020, as the emergence of COVID-19 and the resulting stay-at-home orders breathed new life into the video-game industry, which is experiencing soaring adoption and strong engagement.
Three out of four people in the U.S. are currently playing video games, according to a report from industry follower NPD Group (by way of TechCruch), amounting to about 244 million gamers -- up sevenfold from just 32 million in 2018. Worldwide, gamers will spend an estimated $159 billion in 2020, and that figure is set to climb to more than $200 billion by 2023.