Viral reaction

Last month we celebrated games that could lift the heaviest of hearts, and over the past month or so, it’s become clear that more and more people have turned to the medium for succour in these unprecedented times. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused hardware and software postponements, while distribution and certification delays are ongoing, and yet numbers are up across the board. Digital and physical sales saw a huge spike during the early weeks of lockdown, and while the curve steadily flattened as – in most countries, at least – the same began to happen for coronavirus cases, weekly figures were still well ahead of the average. Doom Eternal recorded the best opening sales in franchise history. The extraordinarily well-timed Animal Crossing: New Horizons became Nintendo’s thirdfastest seller of all time, outstripping every Mario and Zelda game. People wanted to read about games, too: physical copies of E345 sold out within 24 hours; The Observer’s monthly gaming column became a weekly concern; the Financial Times even wrote a delightfully straightfaced article on the reduction in bank interest rates in Animal Crossing.

But what of the impact of Covid-19 on those working to bring us