It seems like every conversation these days starts and ends with COVID-19 – at least if your job is related to legal or business aspects of the games industry.
Will Gamescom happen in August in Cologne?
Probably unlikely, but could run as a limited local event if Germany succeeds in its “identify, isolate and treat” policy. Though the idea of tens of thousands of people congregating in one exhibition center sounds like the case of
game zero, thought to be responsible for Bergamo being hit the hardest.
Are our industry friends the UK all right?
Hopefully, yes – at least the country is finally in a lockdown (after toying with the idea of building a herd immunity and refusing to close pubs, very much a case of
GOBI, the government now shifted the gears and succeeded in shifting the blame to its own citizens).
And how’s CCP Games doing over there in Iceland?
If you like numbers,
worldometer has a very convenient
dashboard updated 24/7 that allows you to review and compare each country’s numbers in real time.
And if you want to give your brain more food for thought on the subject, I definitely recommend Luca Dellanna’s daily
newsletter (he’s based in Singapore and wrote a number of books that deal with predictability and probability, and he certainly knows the difference between lagging and leading indicators of a process).
Whether we talk about it or not, COVID-19 is going to be
the background of 2020, already leading to the term “generation C” (if you haven’t read Ed Yong’s
How the Pandemic Will End, it’s where it comes from).
Here’s hoping that we come through the pandemics as better people: a bit smarter, a bit kinder, and a bit more appreciative of all the luxuries that we enjoyed before the world held its breath.