The coronavirus epidemic that is spreading in some parts of the world has one very interesting consequence - the mass download of a strategy game Plague Inc., in which players are tasked with spreading a deadly virus with the goal of wiping out the entire human population. The game comes from the British studio Ndemic Creations and is based on iOS App Store It is one of the cheaper paid games, and has been very well rated in the past. Recently, it has started to be downloaded en masse, especially by users from China.
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The first news about the unusual spread of the coronavirus in China began to appear in the media on Tuesday. It wasn't long before Plague Inc. attacked the first rank of the most downloaded paid games - first in China, then in other countries of the world. The game as such saw the light of day in 2012. According to player reviews, it is a really sophisticated strategy in which players have a number of phenomena known from the real world, such as drug resistance or fake news, in an attempt to exterminate humanity with a deadly pathogen. The game has already been downloaded by more than 135 million players worldwide, and its creator was even invited to speak at the Center for Disease Control in 2013 about how games can be used for public engagement, according to the Wall Street Journal.
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According to the website New York Post people can now play Plague Inc. to a certain extent to compensate for the fear of the spreading unknown form of the coronavirus, which has already caused several deaths and hundreds (according to some estimates, even thousands) of those infected. "The best way to defeat fear is to face it," said one of the users of the Chinese social network Weibo in this context. Creators of Plague Inc. on his own twitter account said they were "getting a lot of questions" about the coronavirus outbreak and shared a link to the World Health Organization's website where the public can find information about the coronavirus.
Classic scenario
It's not the first time Plague Inc. has seen an increase in the number of downloads in connection with an epidemic - this was the case, for example, in 2014, when the Ebola epidemic broke out in Africa. At that time, the Ndemic company, with the help of its supporters, donated more than 76 thousand crowns to relevant charitable purposes. The game Plague Inc. according to its creators, it is intended to increase public awareness of epidemiology, disease transmission and other necessary information.
But the coronavirus epidemic is not only reflected in iOS App Store. According to available information, a new documentary series is enjoying great popularity on the popular streaming platform Netflix Pandemic. The six-part series deals with the issue of epidemics and pandemics, maps their history and describes their progress, the way they spread, and how various organizations fight against them. Thanks to this, many users also perceive it as a kind of "news" or interpretation of what they should prepare for in the future - or what they may face. However, the exact viewing figures are not known, as Netflix keeps them under wraps. We can only hope that the world will win the fight against the new coronavirus soon and that the fear that accompanies this disease will leave it behind.
