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Hi and welcome to the A16Z podcast.

I'm Lauren Murrow.

Since social distancing measures were first put in place, time spent gaming has gone up 75% during peak hours.

In this hallway style conversation, A16Z partner John Lye joins me to talk about how the stay-at-home movement is fueling

gaming, what we're playing, and why live streaming is having its moment.

Playtime in general is up massively across every category of gaming.

PC games are up, Steam, the world's largest marketplace for digital PC games.

Steam has been around for 20 years and it's never seen this level of user activity.

Average concurrent users online typically hover around 15 million.

It hit an all-time record high this past Saturday of 22 million concurrent users online so that's a

spike of almost 50 percent. Console games are up massively as well. What is driving

this spike? Obviously we're all at home more but what other factors are coming into play?

So I think what's special about games versus other types of media is data.

Gaming is the most of activity that a set of friends can engage in at the same time.

There are moments of levity, competition,

their emotional highs and lows over the course of a typical gaming session.

These are bonding moments for people,

and they create really deep social relationships.

It seems like smart game studios are also putting measures into place

to encourage more at home play.

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