Recap: The pandemic's effect on gaming didn't just mean increased sales last year, more people were tweeting about the subject, too---a lot more. Over two billion gaming-related tweets were posted in 2020, marking a 75 percent increase over the previous year.
Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on many businesses, such as cruise operators and airlines, but some have benefited from lockdowns and more people opting for home entertainment. It's been a boom time for streaming services, while PC shipments saw their highest growth in ten years.
Gaming, both hardware and software, has also experienced a massive uptick in sales and hours played, something reflected in the amount of social media chatter on the subject. The number of unique gaming tweet authors was also up, by 29 percent compared to 2019.
Gaming was the sixth most followed topic on Twitter. Within that category, the most followed topics were:
1. Gaming
2. Gaming News
3. Esports
4. Gaming Influencers
5. Playstation
6. Fortnite
7. Call of Duty
8. Minecraft
9. Animal Crossing
10. Xbox
While one might expect the US to have the highest number of gaming tweets, it sits in second spot behind Japan. The rest of the top six comprises Korea, Brazil, Thailand, and the UK.
Animal Crossing was the most tweeted about game, followed by Fate/Grand Order. The latter is a free-to-play Japanese mobile game from 2015 that's very popular in the country and grossed over $4 billion worldwide as of 2019.
With major conferences going digital last year, there were plenty of gaming events to tweet about. The 2020 Games Awards was the most popular, with the Future of Gaming on PS5 Event second.
Esports also saw an increase in tweets. Fourteen percent more posts related to the subject arrived in 2020, while the League of Legends Worlds 2020 was the most talked about event, FaZe Clan the most tweeted about team, and @Mongraal the most tweeted about esports competitor.
Image credit: Sattalat Phukkum