Ever since the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, both the disease and amount of information – right and wrong – has spread like wildfire. With concerns over the disease’s rapid spread on everyone’s mind, people are understandably seeking information wherever they can.
Unfortunately, it seems like a worrying number of panicked folk have decided to turn to the most unhelpful source for info about the coronavirus: the disease-simulation video game, Plague Inc.
For those who are unaware of what Plague Inc. is, it’s a game where the goal is to create a plague and infect the world’s population within a certain time frame. The developers, Ndemic Creations, say that while the game aims to be realistic and informative, it isn’t based on any scientific model nor does it intend to sensationalise real-world issues. However, that hasn’t stopped people from flocking to it following the coronavirus outbreak and becoming the best-selling app in China, some eight years after its initial release.
While the surge in Plague Inc‘s popularity is good for the Ndemic Creation’s bottom line, the sheer amount of people flocking to the game in an attempt to find out info about the coronavirus as caused the studio to issue out a statement warning people to look for proper info elsewhere (like the World Health Organisation) and not a video game.
“We specifically designed the game to be realistic and informative, while not sensationalising serious real-world issues. This has been recognised by the CDC and other leading medical organisations around the world.
“However, please remember that Plague Inc. is a game, not a scientific model and that the current coronavirus outbreak is a very real situation which is impacting a huge number of people. We would always recommend that players get their information directly from local and global health authorities.”
It probably doesn’t need to be said but I’ll do it anyway since this coronavirus outbreak is a pretty unique case – who would’ve thought that a video game titled Plague Inc. isn’t a good source of useful information regarding a new disease? I mean, if you want to learn how to drive, playing Grand Theft Auto isn’t the way to do it.
To be fair to the many players who bought the game in hopes of using it as an way to learn about the coronavirus, there’s a tonne of information out there and much of it is bogus as we’re still learning about the disease, which makes it difficult to figure out what is true and what is false.
Having said all that though, video games do have its uses when to comes to disease outbreaks. Back in 2005, World Of Warcraft was hit with a virtual pandemic and the way players reacted taught epidemiologists a lot about how people could react to a real epidemic, so it’s not that ridiculous for scientists to learn something about the coronavirus using a video game in the future (though it is still pretty frigging ridiculous).
But right now though, Plague Inc. isn’t a great source of info for the coronavirus, since it’s still, well, a video game. But hey, you have to tip your cap to the, ahem, viral marketing the disease has given the game. I’ll show myself out.
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