The COVID-19 pandemic that spread across the world at the beginning of 2020 was not only a big threat to public health, but also to the entire entertainment industry. While cinemas and theaters closed their doors to try to stem the spread of the disease, many people turned to home entertainment and eSports during periods of self-isolation. During the peak of the crisis in March 2020, over 43 million hours of the top 50 games on Twitch were watched on one day on March 21.

The COVID-19 pandemic that spread across the world at the beginning of 2020 was not only a big threat to public health, but also to the entire entertainment industry. While cinemas and theaters closed their doors to try to stem the spread of the disease, many people turned to home entertainment and eSports during periods of self-isolation. As people turned to eSports to get their fix of live entertainment, downloads of the streaming platform Twitch increased across the world. First-time downloads of the app increased by 50 percent week over week in Greece and 41 percent in Italy, a country hit particularly hard by the pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic that spread across the world at the beginning of 2020 was not only a big threat to public health, but also to the entire entertainment industry. While cinemas and theaters closed their doors to try to stem the spread of the disease, many people turned to home entertainment and eSports during periods of self-isolation. In March 2020, viewership on eSports streaming platform Twitch increased by 10 percent compared to the figures from the previous week.

The COVID-19 pandemic that spread across the world at the beginning of 2020 was not only a big threat to public health, but also to the entire entertainment industry. While cinemas and theaters closed their doors to try to stem the spread of the disease, many people turned to home entertainment and eSports during periods of self-isolation. In March 2020, the online eSports streaming service Twitch set an all-time record of 22.7 million peak daily active users.