James Vaughn, The creator of the mobile strategy game, Plague Inc recently held a Q&A in celebration of its tenth anniversary.
Since its release back in May 2012, over 180 million people have played the game, with a spike in players after the Covid-19 outbreak. When asked what the player count looked like following the outbreak of Covid-19, Vaugh replied:
“Interestingly, Plague Inc has always got more popular whenever people get ill, eg When Plague Inc was #1 in Japan – we saw big spikes every time there was a bad flu outbreak. When Ebola was spreading in 2015, we saw a big worldwide spike in players. When Covid first started though we saw the biggest increase in players ever – it lasted for about a month and then went back down to normal levels.”
Vaughn noted that Plague Inc wasn’t the only exception, it was also happening with other pandemic-related content.
“It wasn’t just our game that had a big increase in players though – I also saw it happening to disease-related films, books, TV shows and board games. People really wanted information and turned to whatever sources they could to learn more about pandemics.”
Vaughn continued by saying that it was “Awkward” to profit from a global disaster. He said that he didn’t want the success of his game to be in tandem with the pandemic, rather he wanted it to be a success because the game was good.
“Awkward is putting it mildly! It felt very uncomfortable seeing all the fictional things I had put into the game playing out in real life. I want my games to do well because they are good games – not because of a serious global disaster,” said Vaughan.
“When Covid first hit (before it spread worldwide) I immediately got in touch with various medical/scientific experts I know to get their thoughts on how we could best help. In the end, we donated $250k to the WHO and CEPI and also made Plague Inc: The Cure to help people understand the complexities of stopping a pandemic.”
Plague Inc. The Cure was developed in 2020 and is out now for free for mobile and PC.
