The coronavirus pandemic is proving a bonanza for some game developers as people living under lockdown reconnect to humanity in an online virtual reality. Wang Yuke reports from Hong Kong.
Ian Kan, a local game developer, is designing a shooting game, leveraging VR technology to create a maximum immersiveness. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
People are locked up, clinging to the last vestiges of their sanity, while COVID-19 stalks the world like the Cryptkeeper. Life became a dystopian movie a couple of months back, and now most people are trying not to go stir-crazy — while some are not succeeding.
Then came the video game. It’s been around for decades, but for some, it’s an escape from the nightmare. Video games are creating social connectedness that, for most people was never there before.
There’s Sam Lam, a senior executive financial manager in insurance. He’s into FIFA 2020, an e-soccer game. It became “a thing”. Lam has been stuck at home for two months, getting pretty down about it. “All of a sudden, I have more leisure time. Too much, I’d say,” Lam said.
When social activities are lacking, we starve, and if the need is left unmet, we’ll seek an alternative, such as a video game
Chen Zhansheng, associate professor of psychology at the University of Hong Kong
He started filling the void with the game. “I used to play a couple of times a month. Lately, I’ve been playing four times a week, two hours at a time,” Lam said. FIFA 2020 has become a habit. “If I play shy of two hours today, I’ll be sure to make up for it at the end of the day,” Lam said with a laugh. He thinks it’s turned out pretty well. “I’m renewing old friendships,” as the game lets players talk to each other.
Many business owners are afraid that the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train. It’s not like that for the video game industry. COVID-19 has set off a sales bonanza. The spikes in orders started when the authorities started enforcing lockdowns all over the world.
Video games have been awarded the seal of approval by a body no less august than the World Health Organization — ironically, the same organization that just a short while back warned about the harmful effects of video games and video-game addiction.
“People are scared. It’s like, the virus could come like a knock on your door,” said Chen Zhansheng, associate professor of psychology at the University of Hong Kong. “We are triggered. We have to look for ways to adapt to the new normal and a new life.
“At the start, we are curious, maybe even delighted. After all, it’s a new experience. But as isolation and social disconnection go on and the pandemic gets worse, fear and even depression set in. It can be overwhelming,” Chen said.
Ian Kan, a local game developer, is designing a shooting game, leveraging VR technology to create a maximum immersiveness. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Lam followed a strict 14-day self-isolation in March. A neighbor of his caught the virus, and reality took on a whole new meaning. “It’s a long, trying time,” he recalled. “I played frenetically.”
Chen said, “When they’re afraid people try to ‘escape’ — you know? Flight or fight? Escape has many exits: entertainment, fantasy, or hobbies. People can channel their fears into games.”
Kevin Yiu is Lam’s friend in real life, and now a pal in the cyberworld. Yiu said he is a shy, introverted guy, but in the world of FIFA 2020, he is someone else.
“On the virtual soccer field, I’m really self-assured. I am a team leader,” Yiu said. As a seasoned player, he has acquired a tactical mind and can use “strafe dribbling, setup touch, flair roulette…”, he rattled off a list of obscure strategies. The confidence and leadership he gets from gaming actually changed his real-life persona to a degree, Yiu asserted. “I find myself talking more and not avoiding social activities.”
Social remedy
Imagine if you could meet up with a computer-generated avatar, fall in love, get married, and have kids. That’s what some people are looking for under the grim specter of social distancing.
The social-simulation game Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the latest sensation. You are dropped onto an island to be greeted by animals villagers, and then live with the animals, prey on insects from the crack of dawn, go fishing, plant trees, pick their fruit and sell them at the market, while thinking maybe there’s truth to “four legs good, two legs bad”, from George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
“Social bonding is a basic need for us humans, as important as food,” Chen said. “When social activities are lacking, we starve, and if the need is left unmet, we’ll seek an alternative, such as a video game.”
Sam Lam is obsessed with FIFA 2020, an e-soccer game, these days when he has to work from home. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)
Fine-tuning to game culture
Social distancing and self-isolation shape a distinct game culture, where people are inclined to choose games that support shared play.
Video game players’ appetites shift constantly, which informs game designs. “An interesting phenomenon recently is that people are interested in playing solo and also watching others playing online,” said Mikael Jakobsson, a research scientist at the Game Lab of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been investigating how gaming activities fit into cultural and social practices.
That knowledge cues game designers that “they shouldn’t focus solely on games offering single playing experiences. They need to produce something that can engage fans of livestreamed games,” he said. This can be seen in the Battle Royale game. The game is popular in and of itself, but it also makes influencers who stream their play on livestreaming platforms, such as Twitch, for others’ consumption famous. “To achieve that, the games must have high ‘skill ceilings’,” he said, referring to the highest potential skill that the gamer can attain only if he or she is committed enough to master it. “Only a challenging game is interesting to watch because the streamers have the chance to parade their skills that others can’t do fully,” Jakobsson said.
Children’s screen time has seen an explosion as the result of global school closings. “Like adults, kids also need space to breathe under the chilly grasp of social distancing. Games should be encouraged. It is not easy to be at home with their parents for extended periods. They need alternatives apart from home,” said Hanna Wirman, founder of the Global Game Jam Hong Kong.
Professionals in child education suggest parents cut kids some slack when it comes to restricting screen time these days.
Play is the primary avenue to knowledge for children. Wirman’s 4-year-old daughter likes playing an indie game called Florence. “It has a beautiful interactive story with simple puzzles throughout. … I believe she learns problem-solving as well as something about emotions as characters’ facial expressions. She does not understand most aspects of the love story, of course, but the game is peaceful, has really nice music and proceeds slowly,” Wirman said.
Game for escape
When reality becomes too stressful, instinct may tell people to escape from it, and video games work wonders, said Tatia Lee Mei-chun, chair professor of psychology at HKU.
Plague Inc, a strategy video game launched in 2012, made a comeback as COVID-19 hit. The game caught on almost overnight. The player chooses a pathogen, and is then challenged to come up with strategies to advance the transmission of the virus. The holy grail is to wipe out humanity.
Part of the reason the game has gone down so well is that it gives gamers an illusion that they can manipulate and control the virus, relieving their fear about the coronavirus in reality, said Hugh Davies, a postdoctoral fellow of design and creative practice at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University.
Some video games let people do things that are otherwise impossible in reality.
Minecraft is an open-world game that is all the rage worldwide. Players need to “mine” resources for all the necessities for a virtual livelihood. The resources are infinite. The game is enormously popular in Hong Kong, where players have set up an online sharing platform called “Minecraft-HK Community”, where game devotees bounce ideas off each other.
Its popularity in Hong Kong is no surprise, Davies said. The city’s distinctive culture lies in the cage-like living space and great expense needed to furnish an apartment. Minecraft helps people’s dreams come true. “In Minecraft, your living space gets expanded virtually, and gets decorated and outfitted without spatial and budgetary confines, about which Hong Kong residents fantasize,” Davies said. In the virtual space, you can have a spacious living room and even a huge terrace, where you invite a group of friends for barbecue, drink with abandon because you know you have space big enough to accommodate the drunks who have to sleep over and park their cars.
“What’s happening in video games is often larger than life, which is an attractive feature,” he said.
Cyberpunk HK
Hong Kong is a presence in video gaming, serving as the locale for more than 180 video games, particularly cyberpunk games, Davies said. Cyberpunk is a subgenre of gaming, as well as science fiction, that features a futuristic and dystopian urban world, where the advanced technologies capable of colonizing one’s body and a dark gritty underworld society coexist. “Video games set in Hong Kong are influenced by its films of the 1980s and ’90s, which depicted a vision of Hong Kong. It’s visually appealing in the West,” said Davies, a research fellow with M+ and the Design Trust program, initiated by the West Kowloon Cultural District. He has been researching Hong Kong architecture in video games.
“What makes Hong Kong appeal as a cyberpunk city is its multiculturalism, its unique culture of old and new, its mix of past and present, and its verticality, as Hong Kong is caught between mountains and the sea and everything has to grow straight up,” Davies said. However, a lot of cities are coming into light with the same or even more diverse multicultural makeup than Hong Kong, such as Singapore, Shenzhen and cities in South America. “So Hong Kong doesn’t really own ‘cyberpunk’ in the same way as it used to,” he said.
The pandemic has unexpectedly provided enormous opportunities for video game developers, said local game developer Ian Kan.
Kan is developing a shooter game, which is fast-paced in an arcade setting. Enemies pop up at random throughout the 360-degree field. The gamer is challenged to shoot to kill as many targets as possible within a time limit. The player can use customization options to modify their guns in accord with how close the enemies are. Shooting games, or “shooters”, saturate the mass market, so the game has to be very innovative to impress gamers. So Kan introduced virtual reality (VR) guns to replace the ubiquitous game controller to maximize the game’s immersiveness. “A player can hold the gun, feel the gun and sense the vibration when firing,” Kan said. He added that the VR headset used in the game is untethered, so the field is not limited, and the agility of motion is unrestricted.
Ian is optimistic that video games will become immersive enough that players can actually feel objects, smell ambient smells and experience touch “within five years”. “In an open world game, you will smell the presence and danger of the enemies lurking around, you could smell the cordite from the gunfire, feeling the impact as you punch someone in the face, experiencing pain, while inside a haptic suit. … All these will contribute to a superb immersive gaming experience.”
The VR headset will be lighter and untethered to the computer, Kan predicted. “Then gamers will be more satisfied with the overall gaming experience as they can move fluidly, with a greater range and agility of motion.”
Contact the writer at jenny@chinadailyhk.com
