SARASOTA – The coronavirus pandemic separated most of us from friends and loved ones but not all of us. In the virtual world, the party never dies for Dylan Borden.
“My dad brought home a computer when I was 4 years old and since then I’ve been playing games,” Borden says.
He has two brothers, one a Suncoast local and one in New York. With the amount of gaming he’s done since March,
“I’ve spent probably over the last month more time talking to my brother in New York than I have in the past five or six months.”
And not just his brothers.
“My girlfriend, she’s not the biggest video gamer ever, but we’ll play some games where it’s more of a group game and we can all come together and hang out,” Borden says.
We gathered a group of friends through video chat. We played trivia games, word games, and I died, just like the best parties. It’s a weekly thing for Dylan, and it’s a national thing for Americans.
January and February were down months in video games sales year-to-year, expected being the end of the console generation. Then stay-at-home orders were issued coast-to-coast in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
What happened after that? March gaming revenue surged to its highest level since 2008: nearly $1.6 billion.
“Do I think that contributed to the bump in sales? Absolutely, there’s zero doubt,” says David Jaffe, creator of video game series God of War and Twisted Metal.
He points to the online multiplayer games that sold well, such as the new Doom, the new MLB: The Show, and Call of Duty.
“Part of it is it’s social. It’s nice to know there’s a medium out there that’s not only entertaining and fun but allows you to socially connect with people you can’t physically see anymore,” Jaffe says.
One game stood head and shoulders above the rest. Nintendo’s new Animal Crossing already sold over 13 million copies, and more in its debut month than any Mario or Zelda game.
The premise is simple: you go to a deserted island, interact with its animal residents, and build the island you want.
“That world is so innocent and genuine and kind and colorful. I think people need that right now. I think people need that ability to walk away at least for a little bit from a little bit from all the scary stuff they’re hearing on the news,” says Jaffe.
The game’s release date just happened to coincide with the pandemic, and sometimes timing is everything, says Senior Editor at Stereogum.com Tom Breihan.
“You can make a masterpiece and if doesn’t hit the zeitgeist the right way, it’ll go nowhere and land with a thud,” Breihan says.
He pointed to a weird number 1 song from the early 80s called Stars at 45, a song by “Dutch Beatles impersonators doing a disco mega-mix of covers,” according to Breihan.
“The reason that it hit number 1 was because it was the thing that people latched onto when John Lennon died.”
In the world of movies, Spider-Man’s debut in 2002 broke an opening weekend record at the time. It was the first big-screen Spider-Man movie, but Spider-Man is a New York character. Breihan says it doubled as a valentine to a post-9/11 New York.
“The idea of New Yorkers supporting each other and rallying around a cause… at that moment hit a cultural nerve. It didn’t exploit it; it’s an accident of timing. There’s so many of those in the history of every popular art form,” says Breihan
And that leads us back to the comfort of the video game.
“You can get back into that sense of normalcy by getting back into that thing that you’ve been doing, that you’ve loved doing. It’s virtual. But I think some of the new relationships that people have found, it’s very real,” says Borden.
The virtual world, creating and strengthening real relationships.
The John Lennon picture’s owner is John Mitchell and can be found following this link.
