IESF President Vlad Marinescu has highlighted an "unbelievable" boom in esports during the COVID-19 lockdown ©AISTS

Esports and gaming has increased "unbelievably" during the COVID-19 lockdown, Vlad Marinescu, the recently elected President of the International Esports Federation (IESF), has reported.

In a seminar arranged by the International Academy of Sport Science and Technology (AISTS) Marinescu cited figures showing that the esports and gaming market had increased by 35 per cent between January and March this year.

"Because of the COVID-19 crisis you have today more sales than ever of games, you have today more people playing than ever in games, while more people are streaming than ever and more people are watching," he said.

"So a result of the COVID-19 crisis you have an increase in the gaming activity on all fronts regarding the commercial part."

Marinescu cited an article from gamesindustry.biz showing that "from January to March there’s been an increase of 35 per cent in the market."

The report, headlined Mobile Gaming sees record weekly downloads amid COVID-19 lockdown, said that average weekly installs had reached 1.2 billion as downloads increased by 35 per cent from January to March 4.

The article itself cited market intelligence firm App Annie.

Figures cited by IESF President Vlad Marinescu during his recent seminar highlighting the worldwide boom in esports and gaming activity during COVID-19 ©AISTS
Figures cited by IESF President Vlad Marinescu during his recent seminar highlighting the worldwide boom in esports and gaming activity during COVID-19 ©AISTS

He added: "Regarding sales of games, regarding usage of games, it’s unbelievably surprising how much increase there has been throughout the world for gaming, for streaming, and for viewing streams than in the past period.

"If we look at all of the Twitch hours watched for the last years, from January 2018, you can see that huge spike."

Marinescu said that figures for streaming had shown a similar spike.

"So that means that people are home and they are ready to engage," he added.

"And yes they’ve had more time now, they have been aware of the gaming industry, they have more time for watching the games and the streamers stream what’s happening.

"That being said, esports are facing a similar problem to sports with events being cancelled due to the crisis, like the World Championship, which has been pushed to next year.

"But we are able to amend the model quickly and to do esports online tournaments in order to counteract that.

"Everybody is losing money who is organising events, and every event is being cancelled.

"It’s only online game revenue that is increasing.

"So Tencent is reporting a 30 per cent increase in online games revenue.

"It makes sense."