What players really do during the holidays: Winter digital entertainment trends

The end-of-year celebrations are a unique parenthesis in the calendar of gamers. Holidays lengthen, families come together, and screens occupy a special place in this in-between where nobody really has the obligation to do anything useful. The result is visible for the gaming industry: a digital activity explosion that surpasses any other peak of the year. But what happens during this period has also evolved, and current trends tell something interesting about how digital entertainment has become central to contemporary family rituals.

Sales and online activity data have been unambiguous for several years. Video game purchases reach their absolute peak between Black Friday and the first days of January. Streaming platforms see their audience multiply during school holidays. Players who hadn’t touched their console for months come back during these weeks when the cold and darkness settle in, setting up a digital cocooning logic that structures the entire festive period.

Context: The article discusses the impact of the holiday season on the gaming industry and how digital entertainment has become an integral part of modern family traditions.

Fact Check: The article highlights the increase in multiplayer games as popular gifts during the holiday season, reflecting the trend of shared online gaming experiences among family and friends.

By aligning their launches with this calendar for decades, publishers have made video game gifts under the tree a firmly established tradition, with an acceleration since digitalization allows last-minute code gifting.

This season is distinguished by the growing importance of multiplayer games in gift lists. Offering a title that allows playing together, either online or locally, responds to a different logic: sharing an activity during family gatherings or maintaining a connection with friends scattered during the holidays. The top 10 most popular video games during the festive period consistently reflect this trend: cooperative and competitive online titles dominate the rankings, often ahead of big narrative productions that would logically benefit from larger audiences during holiday seasons conducive to long gaming sessions.

The best PS5 games at the moment illustrate this evolution well: even on a premium console associated with high-quality solo experiences, social features and multiplayer modes are now central selling points in end-of-year communication campaigns.