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Here’s how game developers are handling the Covid-19 outbreak
Over the last week or so, game developers and publishers around the world have been announcing their action plans amidst the Covid-19 outbreak. Bungie have offered advice to other companies, Ubisoft said Rainbow Six Siege might miss a few patches, and many others have sent their employees home, dev kits in hand, to make sure production plods along, all the while doing their part to…
Despite cancelling its physical footprint due to the Covid-19 virus, GDC 2020 is carrying on in a fashion with a subset of planned talks now being delivered as GDC Virtual Talks that are wrapping up today. The physical conference, which should have been happening in San Francisco this week, has rescheduled for August. Organisers announced yesterday that they are now planning a three-day event called GDC Summer…
UK game devs share concerns about the loss of community during the Covid-19 pandemic
The games industry has been hit pretty hard from the Covid-19 pandemic. Most events this side of the year have been cancelled or postponed, and now hundreds of workers being urged to work from home (including all of us here at RPS). The impact of this style of working will be different for everyone, so I spoke with some UK studios to see how they're…
Feature: Distance makes the heart grow socialer
Video games to play while you’re self isolating and social distancing
Unless you're in one of those international versions of Big Brother that are still going on, you've probably noticed that we're in the midst of a pandemic of something called the Covid-19 virus. I can tell it's serious because my dad's American girlfriend isn't allowed to visit him, which means he's bored and phoning me in the middle of the day. Haha, I joke. But…
Loads of “games to help you stay inside” are free on Itch.io right now
As more people face a whole lot more time indoors, not to mention medical and financial anxiety, many kind developers are giving games away free or slapping on big discounts. You can find a nice lot of these on Itch.io, where the splendid store have listed many of the "games to help you stay inside". Most of these are free, some have tasty discounts, and…
Despite having to cancel its homestands due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Overwatch League isn't giving up on the 2020 season just yet. Instead of taking their show on the road, Blizzard have set up a brand new schedule to host League matches online. There are obviously some complications with holding competitive events like this online when the teams are so spread across the globe…
A virtual Steam Game Festival will let you play a load of demos today
With basically every games event cancelled or postponed by coronavirus concerns, Valve are launching a virtual showcase of games that would have been on show. The Steam Game Festival: Spring Edition will start tonight with over forty games on show and free demos for folks at home to play until Monday. That's nice, that. I'd be nice if this sort of thing became a permanent…
GDC 2020 begins today. It's online this year after the San Francisco-based conference was postponed due to the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Hundreds of professional presentations and thousands of attendees are no longer getting together in person but the grand industry mindshare is attempting to spread knowledge regardless. Though not every talk has survived the jump to digital space, you can start watching many…
The big daddy of PC game stores broke a new online user count yesterday with a whammin' 20 million folks signed in. Sounds like everyone is at home perusing their game libraries for some reason. On the real, the spread of Covid-19 is certainly keeping folks home more than planned and PC gaming is, of course, a perfect indoor time-sink of a hobby. Good on…
A bunch of kids in Japan held their graduation ceremony in Minecraft
Minecraft has become a graduation venue for a group of students in Japan, after schools have been shut for more than two weeks due to Covid-19. The Japanese school year ends in March, so rather than miss their end of year graduation ceremonies, a bunch of kids got together to create their very own virtual celebrations in Minecraft - and it's exactly the content I…
Donate processing power to help find a treatment for Covid-19
If you want to help stop the spread of Covid-19, wash your hands. Follow medical advice. If you want to help some more, though, it wouldn't hurt to chuck some of your processing power at protein modelling. Folding@home is a program that let's you do exactly that: analysing protein structures to find potential "druggable sites". I won't pretend to fully understand the science, but I…
In lieu of a live show, GDC takes its developer sessions to Twitch
When this year's Game Developer's Conference was unceremoniously postponed over coronavirus outbreak fears, it threw a lot of wrenches at people's calendars. But the postponement also meant the loss of GDC's most valuable assets - hours and hours of lengthy sessions from some of the biggest names in the biz. But losing the Moscone Centre doesn't mean those talks need to be gone for good.…
Walking Simulator A Month Club’s first volume goes free in a “self-isolation” sale
Being cooped up shouldn't mean missing out on the heat death of the universe. To help fight off those quarantine blues, Connor Sherlock's Walking Sim A Month Club Vol. 1 is completely free until the end of March in a "self-isolation" sale. The first volume in Sherlock's Patreon-funded worlds lets you explore over a dozen alien hiking routes - from colossal megastructures to decaying wildernesses…
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Over the past month, at greater and greater pace, games events and happenings have been disrupted by precautionary measures against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. E3 is off, GDC is postponed... this year's PC gaming calendar is looking quite different. We've posted about some of these as they cropped up but it's hard to follow in drips and drabs. So! Here's a long list of effects…
EGX Rezzed 2020, the three-day London games show organised by our corporate siblings (with us!), has been postponed due to health concerns about the Covid-19 coronavirus. It was due to run March 26-28, now it will be sometime this summer. Tickets bought for March's event will still be valid for the postponed one.
Discord increases its screenshare limit to help people isolated by the coronavirus
To help folks using Discord as a substitute for in-person contact during these Covid-19 days, the gaming communication software has helpfully raised limits on screensharing. Discord may be designed for video games but is one of the text, voice, and video chat tools growing popular for remotely replacing classes, workplaces, and just plain human contact as schools and workplaces start shutting down and people start…
As rumours predicted, E3 has officially been cancelled. Like all the other events cancelled recently, it's down to health concerns over the Covid-19 coronavirus. The highest-profile marketing event of the games industry calendar is binned. "After careful consultation with our member companies regarding the health and safety of everyone in our industry – our fans, our employees, our exhibitors, and our longtime E3 partners –…
Update: Annnd it's official: E3 is cancelled. With more and more events being cancelled over recent weeks due to concerns about the Covid-19 coronavirus, it's seemed nigh inevitable that June's E3 would be binned. The organisers have so far said they were keeping an eye on the situation while moving ahead buuut now several outlets are reporting they've heard that E3 is scrapped. Rumour says…
Get some insight into Microsoft’s game development when they stream their GDC talks next week
GDC may be cancelled for now, but that isn't stopping Microsoft from releasing all the talks they had planned for the event. On March 17th and 18th they'll be streaming all the sessions they had ready for the Game Developers Conference over on Mixer, meaning those who wouldn't have made it their in the first place will be able to listen in, too. The developer-focused…
Mojang have postponed Minecraft Festival over outbreak fears
Minecraft's return to convention floors will have to wait another year. Concerns over the new coronavirus have convinced Mojang to call it quits on this year's Minecraft Festival - a planned three-day Florida block party for all things Minecraft this September. Rather than risk the outbreak ending later rather than sooner, organisers are sticking to the online-only format that's served them well the last two…
