One of the major storylines of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic was the boost of stay-at-home stocks that included video games. Up against tough comparable sales, video game stocks saw a strong 2021.

Here are some of the top video game storylines and stock stories of the year.

Amazon Gaming Gets A Hit: Announced back in 2016, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) “New World” from Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) faced multiple delays before hitting the market. The game was launched in September 2021 and became a hit.

On Steam, “New World” was the top game on its launch day with 758,543 peak concurrent viewers, ranking second for all games in a 30-day period. The game ranks fifth of all-time on Steam for concurrent players. “New World” was the second most viewed category on Twitch, behind the generic “Just Chatting.”

The hit game from Amazon continues to rank in the top 20 of most streamed games on Twitch and could continue to boost Amazon’s gaming segment.

Related Link: If You Invested $1,000 In Amazon When It Acquired Twitch, Here's How Much You'd Have Now 

Netflix Gets Into Video Games: A rumored launch of video games by Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX) came to be true in 2021 with the streaming giant launching its first five games, including two based on its “Stranger Things” franchise.

Netflix has plans to launch more games, including a spinoff of the “League of Legends” video game franchise. Netflix is also utilizing video games to create movies and series.

Minecraft Hits Big Milestone: YouTube, a unit of Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG)(NASDAQ:GOOGL) celebrated Minecraft passing one trillion views on the video platform recently. The milestone came as Minecraft remains one of the most popular games for others to watch being played and continues to generate millions of active players after over 10 years since its release.

Mojang Studios, the company behind Minecraft, was acquired by Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) in September 2014.

The game was also the most viewed video game on Twitch in 2021 racking up 2.1 billion hours streamed. “Grand Theft Auto V” trailed only “Just Chatting” for hours streamed on Twitch and came in well ahead of second place game “League of Legends” at 1.8 billion hours streamed.

The Switch was knocked down from its top spot in the month of September by the Playstation 5 from Sony Corp (NYSE:SONY), ending a 33-month streak for the Switch for most units sold.

GameStop Becomes Major Stock Story: Boosted by retail traders and investing communities like WallStreetBets, video game retailer GameStop Corp (NYSE:GME) became one of the biggest stories of 2021. The stock soared in January as a “David vs. Goliath” storyline of retail traders against hedge funds and short sellers.

Shares of GameStop are up 687% in 2021 and traded between $17.08 and $483 throughout 2021.

Stock Performance: Here’s a look at how the top video game stocks performed in 2021:

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