The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented situation, with incalculable health, social, and economic consequences. At the start of the outbreak, the financial markets collapsed, although not all sectors suffered equally. The gaming and eSports industry is one of those that has suffered the least from the fall in the markets. Millions of people locked up at home, bored, stressed, and anguished, gave gaming and eSports companies growing prominence throughout the first half of 2020. This prominence has elicited interest in analyzing which variables can influence the returns in an industry in better financial health than many others. Using a logit–probit model, this research aims to analyze the relationship between financial (VIX, S&P GSCI Gold Index) and social (worldwide daily variation in total deaths from COVID-19 and worldwide Google attention on coronavirus) variables and the returns offered by the video game and eSports exchange traded fund (ESPO). The results show that the influence of social variables is weaker than the influence of financial variables. There is a significant inverse relationship between market volatility and ESPO returns and a highly significant relationship between ESPO returns and gold returns. While the relationship of ESPO returns with worldwide Google attention on coronavirus is significant, the relationship with worldwide daily variation in total deaths from COVID-19 is not. The conclusions of the study are discussed at the end of the paper.

COVID-19大流行导致了前所未有的情况，对健康，社会和经济造成了无法估量的后果。爆发初期，尽管并非所有部门都遭受同样的打击，但金融市场崩溃了。游戏和电子竞技行业是受市场下跌影响最小的行业之一。数以百万计的人被困在家里，感到无聊，压力和痛苦，使游戏和电子竞技公司在2020年上半年变得越来越重要。这种关注引起了人们的兴趣，即分析哪些变量能够以比财务状况更好的方式影响行业的收益很多其他的。本研究使用对数-概率模型，旨在分析金融（VIX，S＆P GSCI黄金指数）和社会变量（全球因COVID-19造成的死亡总数的全球每日变化以及Google对冠状病毒的全球关注）变量以及视频游戏和电子竞技交易所交易基金（ESPO）提供的回报。结果表明，社会变量的影响要弱于金融变量的影响。市场波动性与ESPO收益之间存在显着的反比关系，而ESPO收益与黄金收益之间则具有极显着的关系。尽管ESPO回报与Google在全球范围内对冠状病毒的关注密切相关，但与COVID-19死亡总数在全球范围内每日变化之间的关系却无关紧要。本文的结尾对研究结论进行了讨论。