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Crafting Mines And Crossing Animals: Playing Video Games During The Pandemic

WAMU 88.5 | By Kathryn Fink

Published April 10, 2020 at 12:48 PM MDT

Are we all just playing Animal Crossing all the time?

Reality is lonely right now. Stay-at-home orders eliminated most opportunities to socialize outside the house.

So it’s not surprising that many people are seeking out virtual worlds and communities through video games, including online games that pay real money.

Viewership on Twitch, a live streaming platform for gamers, surged last month. And many, many people stuck at home are finding joy in Animal Crossing after a timely new release.

From WIRED‘s Cecilia D’Anastasio:

It quickly became apparent that those of us whose social lives revolve around online video games had a fail-safe for staying entertained indoors. Floating on my back in a virtual fountain lined with turquoise Byzantine-style tiles, I let a new gratitude wash over me for massively multiplayer online role-playing games, or MMORPGs [Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games]. For weeks, I have been compulsively playing Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft Classic, online games in which my meticulously customized characters battle monsters and complete quests in huge, biologically diverse, digital worlds.

We talk about gaming during the pandemic — and why video games have always been much more than a fun way to kill time.