Jujubee S.A., a Polish developer, has announced COVID: The Outbreak, which is a game that "... brings educational gameplay to players all around the world during the ongoing pandemic." This is actually true, because this will be a great lesson to players wondering if shock value actually sells.
COVID: The Outbreak is a real-time strategy game where players play the role of a global organization that must deal with a global pandemic. They will be able to issue decrees, develop projects, manage resources, and construct buildings as they race to create a vaccine.
The developers have stated that 20% of all net Steam sales will throughout the month of May and June will be donated to the Coalition of Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and other charitable foundations that are fighting this epidemic, which definitely means that you can't complain about these developers exploiting a worldwide disaster for their own monetary gain.
“Here at Jujubee we are passionate about educating our audience while they are having a good time playing our games. Currently, there is a plethora of misinformation circulating the topic of the coronavirus, so we hope our strategy game will serve as a source of entertainment and education for our players.” - says Pawel Nitta, Head of Marketing & PR.
If you are morbidly interested in checking this game out, click here. COVID: The Outbreak will release on Steam on May 29.
Quick Take
This looks like something South Park would do to make fun of tasteless developers that exploit tragedies in order to make a quick buck. This is in such bad taste it's actually pretty funny. Who thought this was a good idea? These guys, apparently, but that just blows my mind. Too soon, my dudes. Much too soon. Maybe wait before the virus is actually gone before pimping it out? A wild thought, maybe, but whatever. The fallout from this should be interesting.
What do you think of this news? Do you think this is in really bad taste? Are you interested in this game? Let us know in the comments!
