Americans are turning to the internet to keep themselves entertained as they hunker down during the coronavirus outbreak — and video streaming services and online video game platforms may stand to benefit.
In CivicScience data collected this week, about 14% of the 2,045 U.S. adults (ages 18+) surveyed said that they had either already signed up for a new streaming service over the past two weeks or planned to do so specifically due to the coronavirus outbreak.
But which platform will benefit the most from this phenomenon? While Netflix and Disney+ have seen relatively stagnant subscription numbers over the past several weeks, CivicScience’s ongoing tracking reported a rise in subscriptions to Hulu and Amazon Prime Video.
Video Game Subsection
Looking specifically at video game players ages 13 and up — who accounted for more than half of the survey’s total respondents — about 13% of gamers said they had signed up or planned to sign up for a new online video game subscription service like Xbox Live or Nintendo Switch Online due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Unsurprisingly, Gen Z and Millennials were the age groups most likely to sign up for these online gaming services. More than a quarter of Gen Z gamers and more than one-fifth of Millennial gamers said they’d signed up for such a service due to coronavirus. 
While it’s clear that many businesses are hurting due to ‘social distancing’ measures during the coronavirus pandemic, mandates to stay home may end up being beneficial to online subscription services overall.
