Where Gaming Fits In Amidst A Pandemic
When the world feels like it’s falling apart, does gaming even matter?
I take one week off…
Building this week’s issue was hard. I took one week off and it seems like the whole world exploded. When I made it back home, I had so much information to absorb and adjust to. When I started to look for articles this week, I had trouble deciding whether I wanted to focus on Coronavirus articles or stick the articles I normally link. I’ve seen publications do both — some find it important to keep their audience updated on what’s going on with COVID-19 while others think that their audience could use a dosage of normal right now. Both are respectable decisions, and I ended up going with the prior for two reasons:
- I do believe it’s important to keep you updated on how COVID-19 is affecting the games industry. This industry is in an interesting spot: a lot of people are playing video games to pass the time. That means it’s a time of growth for gaming, and I think we should talk about that! It’s also important to remember the people behind your favorite video games. They’re struggling with this pandemic as well, and I think it’s important that we highlight that and do whatever we can to help them. I’ll talk more on this later.
- There’s not a lot of articles this week that don’t talk about COVID-19 in some capacity. That’s to be expected because of how much this thing is affecting the world. But if you can’t stand to see another article that has the words Coronavirus or COVID-19 in it, there’s still some articles that have nothing to do with it that you should check out!
But don’t worry, if you’re worn out from the doomsday COVID-19 articles, most of these articles focus on the positive. We talk about how different countries’ devs are banding together and reacting to the virus, how gaming could be more commonplace than Netflix, and how the White House needs Millenials to stay healthy because they’re so good at speedrunning.
Thanks for reading. Stay safe, and as always, enjoy the read!
DEVELOPMENT
Why culturalisation matters as much as localisation
I love articles that highlight behind-the-scenes roles in development that I would have never known about. This time, we’re talking about culturalization. Think about the Wolfenstein series: how did the German government react to those games? That’s an extreme example, as not all games include Nazi symbolism, but it’s interesting to think about the work of culturalization that goes into most games.
A few weeks ago, I linked an article about the development behind Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition. AoE is an example used in this article as well, and it shows how history can be influenced by perspective. When you learn the history of another culture, it’s easy to look at it objectively and say: “this side won, that side lost.” But when you ask the members of that culture to tell the story, they might recall it differently in order to protect their culture’s pride. Before reading these articles, I never thought about it that way, so it’s so interesting to me to see how developers handle that situation.
Speaking of Age of Empires, there’s a competitive scene for it, and I can confirm that it’s incredible.
I love reading articles like these, so please send any that you see my way!
Manticore Games is building a “truly level playing field” for game development
Core by Manticore Games is trying to break down the barriers for game development. But can it succeed?
We’ve seen this idea in multiple different forms, most notably Dreams and Super Mario Maker (albeit on a much smaller level). So it’s interesting to see a completely new competitor throw their hat in the ring to declare that they have the best tool to develop games.
I do find it interesting that so many companies are trying to do this. I’m not against it since we know that platforms like these can bring in big bucks for the creators. Roblox had a record 2019 in bringing in money for their creators, so the idea that some creative teenager could be making a couple thousand from creating games on these platforms isn’t super far-fetched.
I wonder if this hints at a future of game development becoming more widespread and accessible. It’s been on that path for the past 10 years, but is that a good thing? Do we run the risk of flooding the industry?
5 highlights from PlayStation’s big PS5 system architecture deep dive
This week, Sony held a presentation about the hardware of the PS5. It was originally meant to be a GDC talk, but since the in-person event was cancelled, Sony decided to host their own livestream of the seminar. If you fell asleep in the first five minutes, got scared away by Mark Cerny’s demeanor, or just missed it entirely, here’s 5 highlights. Don’t worry, these aren’t super technical highlights; these are bits and pieces pulled from the talk and put into plain English. This way, we can get hype about the little glimpse of PS5 we saw this week.
I feel bad for the PlayStation team regarding this presentation. It was obviously a super-technical talk intended primarily for developers, but the position of a solo livestream made it seem more than that. PlayStation fans got way too excited and were expecting way too much — they wanted a sizzle reel like Microsoft gave us with the reveal of the Series X. But because they didn’t get it, they’re giving PlayStation a lot of crap.
Part of this is PlayStation’s fault: they didn’t do a good enough job with specifying what the topic of the presentation was. They put out a few promotional social media posts, but most them said “we’re taking a deep dive into the PS5 architecture.” While they delivered on that promise from one perspective, another perspective could see a “deep dive” as a talk about the specs of the console, the UX of the console, and much more. I feel like a lot of people’s perspective were closer to the latter. I don’t think this is going to negatively affect PlayStation in the long-run, but it could’ve been an avoided hiccup if they had been a little more clear about what they were presenting.
What’s your most anticipated feature for the PS5? Let me know!
JUST FOR LAUGHS
The White House calls on Millenials to stay healthy because they’re good at speedrunning
Things are really weird all around because of the Coronavirus, but sometimes weird times bring about funny clips, like this one.
Apparently the most redeeming quality the Millennial generation has is that they’re good at speedrunning, especially with games where you can skip from level 3 to level 7. Maybe we’ll see this Dr. Deborah Birx (the one speaking in this clip) donate some money to SGDQ this year?
COVID-19
Time enough at last
Heads up: this one is pretty sad, but a great read.
I’m sure you’ve seen the countless articles titled “Top 10 games to play while you’re stuck at home.” To be honest, I read a few, even considered putting one in this week’s newsletter. But it felt like a strange thing to do, I didn’t know why until I read this article.
This is an article of solidarity. It’s not trying to offer you advice on how to feel better during quarantine or social distancing, which I’ve grown tired of. The author, Mike Drucker, is simply telling you how he feels. And if you feel the same way, you can take solace in knowing that others feel that way too.
I think about the Twilight Zone episode that this article’s title is taken from. It’s lingered in my mind from the first time I saw it because it’s such a scary situation: wishing for something to happen only to find depression and sadness when it finally does. It’s the classic “grass is greener on the other side,” but with a twist. I think the scariest thing is that we might be in a similar situation right now. Mike Drucker is, and I hope that he can find his way to the light on the other side of the tunnel soon.
Gaming Usage Up 75 Percent Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
While it isn’t surprising that people are playing video games more now that they are encouraged to stay home, it is interesting to see the percentage increase when compared to other digital media, like video streaming (Netflix, Hulu, etc.) To me, this could be a hint toward the future of media.
All of these people who have started gaming to cure their boredom will get hooked, and that will keep them gaming for a long time after the self-quarantining and Social Distancing practices are gone. This would lead to a future where people spend their time off of work gaming instead of binging shows. Could this lead to gaming being as common, or even more common, than streaming? Only time will tell, but I’m placing my bets now that it will.
Making games in lockdown: How Italy’s developers are coping with COVID-19
This is a really interesting insight into Italy’s game industry: how Coronavirus is affecting it and how developers are still working during lockdown. Parts of this can be disheartening, it’s hard to ignore the games that will be postponed, possibly even cancelled, due to this virus. It’s hard to read about the challenges that these workers are going through, and these small descriptions could easily be applied to other industries in Italy. If you live in a country where the virus isn’t as bad as it is in Italy, it’s hard to read these stories and think that could be you in a few weeks. It’s hard, but it’s important to see how the rest of the world is fighting against this.
What is encouraging, and what should be celebrated, is the unity that’s sprouted from this situation. A lot of these Italian developers highlight the way they’ve adapted and worked with each other to try and make a good situation out of all the bad. Even in your city or friend group you’ve probably seen unity that hasn’t been there before. Once we get rid of this virus, maybe we can maintain this unity and use it to make this world a better place.
So take a look at the developers mentioned in this article. Look at their games. If you have the extra cash, consider supporting them through this really difficult time.
EA, Rockstar, others shift to remote working amid pandemic
These companies are making the right call by telling their employees to work from home to try and contain the spread of COVID-19. Some are going above and beyond by paying contractors and non-full-time workers who can’t work from home. It’s incredible to see how we can band together to overcome such a daunting pandemic.
Two more companies have just announced that they’re moving their employees to work from home: Square Enix and Ubisoft.
I’ll be keeping track of other players in the industry and how they’re reacting. Depending on how the following weeks go, I may continue to link updates like these. You’ll see next week!
The UK games industry respond to the Covid-19 pandemic
Lastly, here’s what UK games industry companies are doing in response to COVID-19. I know this isn’t even close to covering all of the gaming industries across the world, but hopefully we’ll get more updates in the coming weeks.
This was originally published in the Load Save newsletter, a curated collection of discussions about the gaming industry, development, and community. Subscribe today to get a new issue in your inbox every Saturday afternoon!
I don’t know what next week will look like in gaming news. There might be more articles about COVID-19, there might not. But what matters is what you want. So if you don’t like the COVID articles, let me know and I’ll do my best to find non-related articles for next week.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time!
