Game Spending Up 39% In US, Overall Usage Up 45%, Per Nielsen

The world is in a weird place right now. With the current pandemic of COVID-19, we’re seeing more people in isolation either as official quarantine rules or as suggestions from lawmakers. As you can imagine, people are using this time to catch up on their entertainment, such as movies, TV shows and, of course, lots of video games. And those in the US are playing a lot of catch up on that front.

As reported via The Hollywood Reporter, Nielsen has started tracking video game usage in their figures (before they were focused almost entirely on television ratings). According to their numbers, focusing specifically at March 23rd-29th, the US saw a massive surge in both video game usage (45%) and spending (39%).

Other countries saw similar spikes, but the United States was the biggest in both margins by a pretty decent amount with France being the only competition coming in at 38% on the usage front. Lots and lots of people are playing video games at the moment.