What has COVID done to Games?

Wanted to make a video about this topic quick before jumping into Dying light 2 next week, hope you guys enjoy it!

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Ever since the world shut down we’ve all been bombarded with the effects of global pandemic that have, for many, completely changed our schedules and lifestyle. From shortages of common products, to the rise in prices of those same products, it’s hard to know when, or if, we’ll ever truly go back to “normal”.

The games industry has been no stranger to the effects of the pandemic, if 2020 and 2021 were any indication, they’ve been hit pretty hard. From delays, cancelled games, neutered releases, and layoffs, the entire games industry has been in a bad spot for awhile now. But, 2022 has come, and promises so many games that we’ve been waiting for that it’s hard not to be excited about something coming out this year. So, considering the world is in the early stages of reopening, and games that were massively delayed are now on the horizon, let’s take a look back at just what happened to the games industry due to the virus, and how it will probably be affected going forward.

Throw a global pandemic into this mix that forces everyone to completely re-consider how they live, work, and relax, and you can begin to see what happened in 2021.

And the games that did manage to come out in 2021 either released in a state that was buggy, broken, and required massive support and updates to fix, or released just straight up missing massive amounts of features that are now promised to be added months or possibly even years down the line. Battlefield 2042 and Halo Infinite are the shining examples for both of those points, and are only 2 examples of many games lifespans that existed during both 2020 and 2021.

Speaking of the state of triple A gaming, I’d say the largest bittersweet positive that came out of the games of last year (and the lack there-of) is the rise of indie games’ popularity. Inscryption being recognized for it’s creative and unique experience, Ultrakill being ranked as the 27th highest rated game of all time on steam (which yes, kind of invalidates the title of the second video on my channel, yes I know you have played Ultrakill, it’s a title man), and It Takes Two winning game of the year at the game awards this year over industry titans Resident Evil and Metroid Dread.

And it’s not just indie games that have exploded in popularity, we’ve seen a boom in just the internet in general. Youtubers, Twitch streamers, the internet, and games overall have grown so much in popularity worldwide that every single new big game that comes out is a massive event. I can only comment on the games that I was there for, but New World absolutely exploded and was massive for a week, Halo Infinite surpassed that and was a massive event for the entire gaming community, (rightfully deserved I’ve been waiting for Halo Infinite for 6 years) and Dying Light 2 went beyond Halo Infinite with an absolutely massive launch of his own, which is great to see for a game that’s a lot of fun (I’ll talk about it more in my video next week).