The pandemic and the turn to home entertainment during lockdowns has bolstered the already booming video games industry.

The numbers are astounding. The UK gaming market notched up a record $9.7 billion in revenues in 2020, with the demand for consoles fueling an unexpected rise in British inflation last summer.

The market valuation of the global industry is expected to pass $200 billion in over the next few years.

"One of the biggest reasons for that growth is because of the social nature of gaming," according to George Jijiashvili, senior analyst at the consultancy, Omdia.

"Over the past 20 years, the games have evolved to place connectivity and socializing at their heart, so this basically has resulted in games becoming even more valuable for us during the lockdown periods."

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UK record

Hundreds of industry figures are taking part in The London Games Festival this week. The event overlaps with the one-year anniversary of the first lockdown in the UK, a period in which record numbers of people turned to gaming. 

"The UK is one of the top five game markets in the whole world … behind only China, the U.S. and Japan," says Jijiashvili.

British video game developers have also made a series of hugely successful titles, including Grand Theft Auto and Fall Guys.

"Of course, the UK has been one of the pioneers in home computing. So there's a long history going back with video games in the UK," adds Jijiashvili.

The rise of Roblox

The U.S. gaming platform Roblox has been one of the great corporate success stories of the pandemic.

The Californian company boasts around 200 million monthly users and is one of the most popular gaming sites for children.

Shares in Roblox surged 54 percent when the company made its stock market debut in New York earlier this month, valuing the company at more than $40 billion.

Jijiashvili says the popularity of gaming is here to stay, even after the pandemic.

"I think it's reasonable to say that there will be a decline in growth, and I think that's just the market kind of correcting itself," he says. "But over the next five years, this will be a $220 billion industry."